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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7524278" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think you're running together preference and analysis. The fact that you don't like a system isn't a reason not to acknowledge how it works.And this is exactly how 4e works. The fiction tells us what the mechanics are (eg is the ogre a minion, a standard or a soloe). The mechanics then generate new fiction (eg is the ogre dead or alive). Etc.This makes no sense. An ogre has an absolute degree of toughness. But not absolute mechanical values. Mechanics aren't part of the fiction. They're devices for resolving action declarations and thereby - as per your loop of play - working out what happens in the shared fiction. A typical ogre is, among other things, big, tough compared to a town guard but not compared to Sir Lancelot, and a brute; and its mechanics and stats reflect that. Vs a group of low level PCs its a solo whom they can't possibly defeat unless they work together. Vs an experienced heroic tier hero it's a standard. Vs mid-pargaon Sir Lancelot it's a minion.Nothing in 4e contradicts what you have stated here. Correct - that's why, vs Sir Lancelot, I stat the ogre as a minion.(By the way, when you say "pretty tough compared to a human" I assume you mean an ordinary human - Sir Lancelot is a human but an ogre is not tough compared to him; in AD&D an ogre is pretty weak compared to a high level fighter; etc.)A creature is what it is. But having 47 hp isn't a description of the creature in the fiction. It's a purely mechanical device.That the ogre is a 1hp minion when confronted by Sir Lancelot reflects the fact that the ogre can take a certain number of blows from Sir Lancelot, namely, none! And of course that number changes depending on whom the ogre is fighting - it can take (let's say) a dozen or so blows from a town guard.It's not rocket science.There's no reason why those things need to be constant. They're mechanical devices. An ogre is tough compared to five low-level heroes: stat it with 100 hp (that's a fine measure of toughness). An ogre is barely a speed bump to Sir Lancelot: stat it as a minion.You may not like it, but (i) it's very clear how it works, and (ii) it produces no inconsistency in the fiction - which is what you asserted. That's what I disagree with. I'm not very interested in whether or not you like it - that's a biographical fact about one RPGer. I'm talking about RPG design. And I'm also responding to the (unwarranted) imputation that my game is inconsistent in it's fiction.As a description, that's obviously false - 4e is a counterexample.As a design preference, whatever. That's what you enjoy, so play AD&D or 3E or 5e or whatever floats your boat. That doesn't mean that people who are using different systems are playing games with incoherent fiction.This is why I say that you are not looking at things fiction first.When you say "could still be a mild threat", how do you know? I am telling you - I know from the fiction that an ogre is no threat to a mid-paragon knight. Hence I stat the ogre as a minion. Likewise I know from the fiction that a town guard has no chance to survive a fight with a pit fiend.That's what it means to play a RPG fiction first. The shared fiction tells us what is feasible; then we use appropriate mechanics to model this.Twenty minions might threaten a single PC. A gargantuan elite swarm might threaten a single PC. This isn't rocket science - I've even given (repeated) examples (hobgoblin phalanxes, flights of vrocks).And again, this is what I'm objecting to. Just because you don't like the system doesn't mean that it produces inconsistent fiction. What is inconsistent about a dwarf fighter of 4th level being able to (just) beat a hogbolin chief in hand-to-hand combat; and then at mid-paragon (around 15th level) being able to defeat a phalanx of hobgoblins?Answer: nothing.What's the real number of hobgoblins a 15th level fighter can defeat? Answer: the question makes no sense. You can play mechanics first; or you can play fiction first. The former doesn't produce true answers, though. It's just a different approach.(Your hockey game example just reiterates the confusion of mechanics and fiction. People win hockey games, and win battles, by doing things with their bodies, not by having other people roll dice and record numbers on bits of paper. Here's a better analogy: there may be some people who get confused by the fact that a day can be both 86 degrees and 30 degrees; but most people recognise that it's possible to use more than one scale (different numbers, and different separations of temperature between the numbers) to measure temperature. Likewise there may be some RPGers who get confused by the fact that sometimes the ogre is said to have 100 hp and sometimes said to have 1 hp; but many can recognise that a different mechanical framework (adjusting the defences, the to hit and damage, the hp, etc, so as to hold the overall toughness constant while generating the desired gameplay and fiction) can be used depending on context.)EDIT:Seriously? Now you think I'm lying?I'll repeat: the world is constant. A hobgoblin soldier is a hobgoblin soldier - tougher than a town guard, but not heaps tougher. A 15th level fighter can tackle a phalanx of them. How do I know? From the fiction - that's what it means to be a mid-paragon fighter, and the toughest dwarf around. Mechanically, how do I set up this situation: I write up a 15th level hobgoblin phalanx as a swarm. (It can even absorb an adjacent hobgoblin minion to heal, and leave behind some minions when defeated - cute design in my opinion.)I'll let you explain the differecne between "absolutism" and "fetishism" in this context. But your claim is wrong. The stats of an ogre aren't measurements of anything. They're a gameplay device. A different set of devices can be used to resolve action declarations involving the very same ogre.You don't like it. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.Says who? Qv mechanics fetishism.(1) This is bizarre - a novelist doesn't have to have any mechanical consistency. There are no mechanics involved in writing a novel.(2) Do you think that everyone at my 4e table couldn't get a handle on what was going on when they fought hobgoblin phalanxes? I was there, and I can tell you that they could.And do you think that my table had any trouble using the mechanics to work out what happened when the mid-paragon warriors engaged the hobgoblin phalanxes? The mechanics were crystal clear.And what makes you think this was any different in my 4e game? This is a complete non-sequitur. 4e's combat resolution system can resolve a combat involving a solo, a standard creature, a minion or a swarm. It's versatile like that!That's just ridiculous. It's like me complaining that you're wrong when you tell me its 86 degrees because I refuse to acknowledge that you're using degrees F and not degrees C.It would be like complaining that, in 5e, armour makes you easier to hit because it makes your AC number higher rather than lower.Everyone knows that degrees F is measured in different numbers that scale at a different rate (relative to temperature) than degrees C. Everyone knows that in 5e AC goes up, not down, as it gets better. And everyone knows that in 4e the hp of an ogre correlate to the in-fiction relation of prowess between the ogre and its foe.There is no "viewed through the lens". I can't view 5e AC "through the lens" of AD&D. That would just make me a silly person. There is no viewing degrees C "through the lens" of degrees F. Primary school students learn that. And there is no viewing of 4e "through the lens" of "mechanics absolutism". That's not how the system works. It's incoherent and frankly a bit puerile.</blockquote>

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