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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7524276" data-attributes="member: 29398">1e had a much flatter power curve than 3e, and so Orcs could still be relevant at higher PC levels particularly if encountered in numbers or - as in this case - with powerful backup.One of those sentences is a lie, because they are in direct contradiction and thus cannot both be true.If the same ogre has one set of stats against these guys and another set of stats against those guys then it - and by extension the game world it inhabits - is not constant.It's not mechanics fetishism (which seems to be your favourite phrase today).  Mechanics absolutism, perhaps.Further steepening the power curve.They all have stats no matter what.  I just see those stats as being locked in no matter who or what any of those individuals might be dealing with, if anyone at all.  If the town guard has a maximum of 12 hit points while he's walking home from the pub then he's got 12 h.p. when he's standing on the wall and 12 h.p. if and when he ends up trying to hold that wall against an onrushing dragon.  He doesn't suddenly have 35 h.p. when arresting a street urchin, nor does he suddenly only have 1 when the dragon gets near.The relative differences are still there - the street urchin would have a hard time doing much harm to this town guard while the dragon will blow him to oblivion without a second thought - but I don't and shouldn't need to change anything mechanics-wise about any of these creatures to reflect that relative difference any further than it already is.Poppycock.First, a novel author only has to answer to him-herself.  An RPG has to answer to everyone at the table; and this demands a much greater level of mechanical consistency in order that everyone's playing the same game and can get a handle on what's going on.Second, a novel author uses imagination to determine what happens and his-her own words to describe it.  An RPG uses a combination of imagination and mechanics to determine what happens and then quite often several people's not-always-agreeing words to describe it.Thirs, a novel author has the huge advantage of knowing how things will end up before writing what comes earlier.  An RPG rarely if ever has this level of certainty (and if it did I'd be able to hear your cry of "railroad!" from Australia to Canada) and as a result is in effect "writing its story" somewhat blind.Viewed through the lens of 'consistent fiction backed by absolute mechanics', it's not a misdescription at all.  It's simply taking the mechanics as presented and extrapolating them to the non-PC-facing rest of the game world.Viewed through the lens..., as just above.Game mechanics are by definition an artifice.  With this I agree.But let's at least try to make them a consistent artifice where we can! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Not bad - took 985 posts for this to come up.  Beats my over-under mark by a bunch!So if I'm reading this right, a 4e DM isn't supposed to design encounters or stats or DCs neutrally and impartially?How the heck does one possibly run a proper sandbox site-and-exploration-based campaign in 4e if that's the case?And how the heck is anyone supposed to write and publish a mass-market 4e adventure module without first knowing the players and-or PCs that'll be playing through it at every table?Classic dungeon design very often involved worldbuilding as well as game-play.  I think you tend to overlook this because if memory serves you often (or always?) used canned settings for your AD&D games, which have done 98% of the worldbuilding for you.</blockquote>

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