Making Things Different

[howandwhy99]

I suggest thinking about it in terms of the classes of the game. What constitutes the milieu of an archmage? Of a high level warrior? Pontiff cleric? World-class thief?

In the past I think D&D has gone something like the Birthright route. Rules were created on the Grand strategy scale of game design. That means ruling countries, military, eclesiastical, magical, and illicit organizations. Needing to make decisions for a group where one's Followers number in the 100s, 1000's, and even 10's of 1000's.

Rules like those in many Civilization games are useful here. Waaaay back, I knew of at least a couple groups who used Empires of the Middle Ages for the high level stuff.

So, I would say, high level means thinking in large scale. It does not necessarily mean just fighting skirmish battles on the near-superhuman scale. But some groups may want that.

But in roleplaying it does mean human being perspective. So controlling each citizen like a god isn't really part of it, but sending messages as king to all them works just as well.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think you are. That is, while I can't be sure, I think Ggroy was referring to the same thing I referred to in the column: The fact that, regardless of level, the basic experience surrounding fighting--how, when, why--remains the same.

Well, obviously we can't examine how magical fights differ from experience level to experience level in the real world, but we CAN do that in physical combat.

And the thing is, but for certain details, contests between evenly matched foes look a lot alike, regardless of forum, to the combatants.

To those looking at a struggle from the outside, a schoolyard scrap will look a lot different from an MMA championship bout. But to the participants, its blood, sweat & tears in either forum.

Yeah, there is a LOT more going on in the latter- the opponents are actively reading each other for a wider variety of moves, and considering a wider variety of moves with which to counter or anticipate; things are happening faster; blows are harder.

But any foe near to yourself in competence is going to be a struggle to defeat, regardless of your experience. (Well, barring a mistake or lucky shot, of course.)

 

[pemerton]

I forgot one other thing. High-level PCs need a reputation that can work both for and against them.

This is easy enough to take account of as a GM in encounter design - it is especially relevant when narrating the set-up for urban/social encounters.

Some games incorporate reputation mechanically, as an "attribute" that can be used to achieve social goals, or to augment social skills. I think you'd have to tweak D&D quite a bit to incorporate this sort of reputation stat, but it's easy enough to include it in an informal way via the "DM's frined" - a noble reputation is +2 when using Diplomacy with the king and -2 when using Streetwise to get information from a shady barkeep, and a seedy reputation is the reverse.

 

[pemerton]

regardless of level, the basic experience surrounding fighting--how, when, why--remains the same.

the details have changed—different spells, different monsters, even different planes and environments—but it’s still the same basic experience.

<snip>

“epic” play doesn’t really feel any different from “normal” play, other than the trappings

I think whether this is merely more, or is also different, depends a bit on what you're hoping to get out of play.

If play is mostly the mechanical experience, then higher levels will tend to feel the same - although in D&D this has historically been true in only a limited way for spellcasters, who somewhere around 7th to 10th level undergo sufficient quantitative change for it to become almost qualitative.

But I think the "details" and the "trappings" are pretty important to a lot of people's play experience, and as these change with increasing levels, the feel of the game can change pretty radically. Admittedly my experience with this is more with Rolemaster than D&D mechanics, but the two games are similar enough that I'd be a bit surprised if there's anything inherent to the D&D mechanics that stops them supporting a more epic flavour at higher levels.

Of course, if your 20th level party starts each adventure sitting in a tavern in Sigil waiting to be recruited by a mysterious patron for a raid on the dungeons of Gehenna then you will get the "just more orcs" feel. But at that point we're talking about a campaign where there has not been any substantial change even with respect to the trappings.

 

[Dausuul]

Well, obviously we can't examine how magical fights differ from experience level to experience level in the real world, but we CAN do that in physical combat.

And the thing is, but for certain details, contests between evenly matched foes look a lot alike, regardless of forum, to the combatants.

If the game is going to be dungeon crawling, PCs battling the bad guys hand to hand, at every level from 1 to 20 (or 30, or 36, or whatever), then of course it will feel the same across all levels. That's why I think BECMI offers a promising approach; when you get into the Companion levels, you spend less and less time battling your foes mano a mano and more time leading armies against them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's why I think BECMI offers a promising approach; when you get into the Companion levels, you spend less and less time battling your foes mano a mano and more time leading armies against them.

The thing is, unless I summoned them via my spells, I don't particularly feel like sending armies against my foes in an RPG. I want combats to be personal.

If I wanted to send armies against my foes, I'd play a wargame. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE wargames.

Its just that I want my RPG experience to be at the single participant level.

 

[The 1 and the Prime]

E6 e6 e6 e6 e6 e6!

I feel this thread could use a link to the discussion of the E6 system of D&D.

d20 has four distinct quartiles of play:

Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: Superheroes

I'd add that high level D&D makes no sense for at least one of two reasons:

1: Why are these superheroes even concerned with regular human existence?

Or 2: If you get the ability to reverse death after mashing in 480 skulls, why isn't the whole society organized around manufacturing these artificial "superheroes"?

That said, E6 provides a nice solution to these issues. One could formalize rules about acquiring prestige and followers instead of continued acquisition of feats.

 

[FireLance]

Its just that I want my RPG experience to be at the single participant level.

Sure, and others want the option of expanding their RPG experience to include directing mass battles, or governing a country, or leading an organization and using its resources to achieve certain goals.

D&D already does personal combats quite well. This thread is an attempt to look at ways to incorproate these other aspects into D&D.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I get that, but my instinct is that to run those mass battles and other big scale scenarios, what is really needed is a completely new game. (Modeled on the underlying RPG, of course.)

Consider the differences between any Star Trek RPG, Star Fleet Battles (ship-to-ship combat in the Star Trek universe), and Federation & Empire (Fleet actions in the Star Trek universe). In each, you're playing in an environment that is tailored to model a certain set of assumptions, but you're operating at different levels of scale. But its all Star Trek.

I'm not sure that any RPG can do justice to anything beyond personal combat. Once you get to the scale of a mass battle, anything beyond a PC or major NPC is going to be reduced to a collection of stats little different from a unit in a wargame.

Now, it is perfectly possible to present rules that allow you to translate RPG PCs and major NPCs into wargame-like units, giving them the ability to affect morale, attack large areas and so forth, in analogs of the PCs' actual powers, which would work just fine for squad or company level engagements.

Beyond that, though? Perhaps an army led by a legendary leader (IOW, a high-level PC or NPC) would have a some special rules for it...like a +2 mod to certain kinds of combat situations, or the ability to ignore certain terrain effects. That kind of thing worked fine with the old computer wargame, Warlords* (at least, its original version).

But again, I really can't see a pure RPG doing justice to mass combats. At that scale, it simply ceases to be role-play in some way.

* Which reminds me...DAMN I wish there was a OS X version of Warlords out there- I loved that game!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think you are. That is, while I can't be sure, I think Ggroy was referring to the same thing I referred to in the column: The fact that, regardless of level, the basic experience surrounding fighting--how, when, why--remains the same.

Yeah, the whole WoW-esque "Collect 17 bunny ears, now collect 17 DIRE bunny ears, now collect 17 HELL bunny ears, now collect 17 GOD bunny ears!" train exists for D&D.

I dodge this bullet in my home games, when I can, by making combats subservient to the narrative. That is to say, this fight doesn't happen unless there's a reason for it. That dodges that reptition by ensuring that something unique hinges on each combat. First, you need to slay 17 bunnies who are raiding Farmer Garret's garden, but then, you meet the Bunny Tamers, and then Shub-Niggurath, the Goat with One Thousand Young, whom the Bunny Tamers worship, and then you're trying to slay a squamous horror as it plummets slowly to earth, and you on the back of a friendly Gold Dragon have to overcome the horrible tentacled bunnies it spits out at you.

Combat is less repetitive if there's not as much emphasis on needing to fight.