Minion Fist Fights

[Rex Blunder]

Everyone else is giving you a pass here on the hyperbole

Credit where credit is due! I have been ever vigilant about the stale pastries issue.

-Rex "Voted Most Likely to Take a Hard Line about the Damage Done by Flung Food" Blunder

 

[hong]

If something exists and is measurable in the game world, it's a game element.

The trick is not to waste your time measuring stuff.

 

[pemerton]

Here is a point I honestly don't get. What is the reason for developing a narrative based ruleset for a game centered solely around killing things and taking their stuff?

I can't speak for others, but for me the attraction is the same as in superhero comics: excessive physical violence is a very easy metaphor for a whole range of conflicts.

I don't see 4E as really narrative. Instead, it has just chosen to concentrate on results and gameplay instead of worrying about the rules also providing a structure outside a gameplay scenario.

I don't either. I see it as a highly gamist game.

<snip>

I think that its being welcomed by some more narrativist types because they are hoping for something which is less burdensome to thier style of play and high on that list would be fixing the balance of the game in and out of combat so that they can focus on the story more. I also think that there are quite a few gamists who are talking about 4E as a narrativist game because 'gamist' has acquired (quite unfairly) a reputation for being a less mature sort of play, and 'narrativist' has acquired (quite unfairly) a reputation for being a more serious, mature, and sophisticated form of play.

Rob Heinsoo has said it is being written for gamist purposes, but has (in the same paragraph) said that in that respect it resemble indie games.

I think that this is consistent with the notion put forward by Ron Edwards, that many of the same rules that support gamism can support narrativism (and vice versa), because both are about a player-centric game. At any given gaming table it is simply a question of the purposes to which those rules are being put.

 

[robertliguori]

Yes. It is metagaming. Metagaming mixed with a healthy dose of straw man argumentation, though.

Do you seriously believe that monsters like woolly mammoths will be minions? I mean you, personally, the person typing under the screen name Andor. As an individual human being in real life. Not as a Mighty Forum Warrior who will say anything to win a fight. You personally. Do you think that Woolly Mammoths sound like a minion monster?

Everyone else is giving you a pass here on the hyperbole, but without the hyperbole your post is blank. So I'm not inclined to let it go.

We've seen epic-level minions, yes? That would tend towards the ridiculous end of the scale in terms of minions.

I'll turn it around. Of course that mumak (advanced dire elephant) exists solely to smash through your lines but then be slain in a single dramatic action. Likewise, the Witch-King of Angmar is obviously a minion; he dies in a single stroke after his defenses are lowered by the low-level hobbit's Daily (and with the flanking). I mean, that makes sense; there are nine nazgul, after all, so some of them have to be minions in order for the encounter to be balanced.

And as for me personally, I haven't seen enough to pick out a coherent sense of minion versus nonminion status. I have seen several crude attempts to approximate a cinematic feel encoded into the rules, and I have seen several movies in which great beasts were felled with titanic single blows. Given this, I'd not be terribly surprised if we did have huge-and-above animal minions.

 

[Hussar]

Originally Posted by Andor
Here is a point I honestly don't get. What is the reason for developing a narrative based ruleset for a game centered solely around killing things and taking their stuff?

Because it will let me have scenes like this one in my game:

And any rules that let me do that? Well, gimme please.

 

[Family]

"...killing things and taking their stuff?"

Good luck looting those bodies.

On the upside good use of forced movement.

 

[Piratecat]

Likewise, the Witch-King of Angmar is obviously a minion; he dies in a single stroke after his defenses are lowered by the low-level hobbit's Daily (and with the flanking). I mean, that makes sense; there are nine nazgul, after all, so some of them have to be minions in order for the encounter to be balanced.

This is the funniest thing I'll read today. It's so, so very true. I'd never considered it before.

 

[Andor]

Yes. It is metagaming. Metagaming mixed with a healthy dose of straw man argumentation, though.

Do you seriously believe that monsters like woolly mammoths will be minions? I mean you, personally, the person typing under the screen name Andor. As an individual human being in real life. Not as a Mighty Forum Warrior who will say anything to win a fight. You personally. Do you think that Woolly Mammoths sound like a minion monster?

Everyone else is giving you a pass here on the hyperbole, but without the hyperbole your post is blank. So I'm not inclined to let it go.

As RobertLiguori said, we have seen Epic Devil minions. Elsewhere on this thread people have said they wouldn't mind seeing dragon minions. So no, I would not put it past WotC to have Huge or Colossal minions. As so many have stated there is no element of simulationism in these rules, so why not? What honestly is the difference between an epic level minion who looks like Satans last blind date, and one that looks like an elephant that abused steroids?

 

[Celebrim]

Because it will let me have scenes like this one in my game:

And any rules that let me do that? Well, gimme please.

300 4th level fighters bullrushing 300 1st level warriors?

 

[Hussar]

As RobertLiguori said, we have seen Epic Devil minions. Elsewhere on this thread people have said they wouldn't mind seeing dragon minions. So no, I would not put it past WotC to have Huge or Colossal minions. As so many have stated there is no element of simulationism in these rules, so why not? What honestly is the difference between an epic level minion who looks like Satans last blind date, and one that looks like an elephant that abused steroids?

To be fair, I see no problems with epic level minions.

The odds that IN PLAY you are going to be able to toss peasants at them is so vanishingly small that I can't honestly be asked to worry about whether or not it would actually matter.

Yes, Andor, you're probably 100% right. But, since you are only 100% right in such a small, miniscule corner case, it's pretty safe to say, "who cares?"