Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4224743" data-attributes="member: 1054">It is. We've seen the stat blocks.Now, it's possible there are Night Watch Grunts which ARE minions. The question is, do they know it? Or is it discovered the hard way?&quot;We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs.&quot;&quot;And?&quot;&quot;He's dead.&quot;&quot;Huh. I could have sworn we had a 'no minion' policy in the guard.&quot;&quot;That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone.&quot;&quot;Oh well...&quot;Send in the peasants to clear them out. 20 per dragon. Peasants are cheap.Is this explicitly stated anywhere? Are there rules for &quot;deminioning&quot; someone?Because regardless of the purpose of the rules, players WILL treat them as descriptions of the universe, and to the extent they need to be told &quot;Well, yes, according to the rules you could do that, but you can't, because that's not how the rules are supposed to be used&quot;, they will feel limited and constrained. If game balance is based on &quot;People should honor the spirit of the rules&quot;, game balance is broken.It's like being in a video game where you can blow up tanks, but not a flimsy wooden door, because the game designer wants you to find a key. It blows immersion out of the water.Now, to be fair, according to a blog post by Mike Mearls, 4e explicitly opposes that style of play, encouraging players to treat the environment as 'real' and not as a set of skill check DCs. Unofrtunately, that kind of thinking is inherently simulationist and doesn't mesh well with anti-simulationist rules.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lizard, post: 4224743, member: 1054"] It is. We've seen the stat blocks. Now, it's possible there are Night Watch Grunts which ARE minions. The question is, do they know it? Or is it discovered the hard way? "We sent Corporal Smith out with the grenade to kill those orcs." "And?" "He's dead." "Huh. I could have sworn we had a 'no minion' policy in the guard." "That's for the Elite Watch, sir. He was with the Slum Patrol. They'll take anyone." "Oh well..." Send in the peasants to clear them out. 20 per dragon. Peasants are cheap. Is this explicitly stated anywhere? Are there rules for "deminioning" someone? Because regardless of the purpose of the rules, players WILL treat them as descriptions of the universe, and to the extent they need to be told "Well, yes, according to the rules you could do that, but you can't, because that's not how the rules are supposed to be used", they will feel limited and constrained. If game balance is based on "People should honor the spirit of the rules", game balance is broken. It's like being in a video game where you can blow up tanks, but not a flimsy wooden door, because the game designer wants you to find a key. It blows immersion out of the water. Now, to be fair, according to a blog post by Mike Mearls, 4e explicitly opposes that style of play, encouraging players to treat the environment as 'real' and not as a set of skill check DCs. Unofrtunately, that kind of thinking is inherently simulationist and doesn't mesh well with anti-simulationist rules. [/QUOTE]

Verification