Minions are alien visitors from another kind of game

[BigbyBear]

Personally, I think a lot of the problems you're having is based on the system using different building blocks for monsters and PCs. Now there are arguments for and against both points of view, and once I would have agreed, but Charles Ryan (I believe) wrote a rather persuasive blog on the subject and I have to say -- I'm convinced.

got a link? I love a good persuasive blog entry.

 

[Korgoth]

Hell, for my epic boss monsters I would not even give them hit points. I would let the PCs hit him until it FELT about right, according to the flow of the encounter, and then let the next blow drop him. Best BBEG fights ever. The anti-minion. Just don't tell my players. They need their illusions.

If I were a player and a DM did that to me, I'd be furious. I would consider that as being treated with contempt and having my time stolen.

 

[Andor]

The minion doesn't have to be believable to the DM, only to the PCs. Since they aren't looking "under the hood" they have no idea that some of the monsters they're facing will die with one blow.

They don't? After killing 400 minions over 15 levels of advancment they haven't noticed that some orcs can be killed with a well throw pat of butter and others can nap under a pile driver without risk?

They haven't noticed that as they learned to swing harder they got tougher, but that somehow these orcs broke the advancement rules that have applied to every person or monster (since a named monster by definition is not a mook) they have ever spoken too?

If the minion rules are intended to be cinematic backdrop to allow the GM to show vast armies fighting and dieing in the background, then they don't need rules in the first place. Set dressing is set dressing, whether it's a dramatic sunset over an ancient ziggurat or a horde of screaming orcs that get killed by the sun gleaming off Sir Loin O'beefs flawless grin.

If they are intended to be beings that actually exist in the same physical reality as the PCs then how can the PCs fail to notice that 4 out of 5 monsters are made out of angry soap bubbles and every 5th monster has actual meat on his bones?

This, by the way, is NOT a simulation issue. It's an immersion issue.

 

[Fifth Element]

If I were a player and a DM did that to me, I'd be furious. I would consider that as being treated with contempt and having my time stolen.

Regardless of whether you enjoyed the game or not?

 

[Boarstorm]

got a link? I love a good persuasive blog entry.

Gleemax.

I'll try to find it, but with the gimped search function, I can't guarantee results. Will edit this post if I get lucky.

Edit: 2 things --

1) I was not able to locate the blog mentioned.
2) I believe I was mistaken earlier, and the author was actually Rodney Thompson. Mea culpa.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

They don't? After killing 400 minions over 15 levels of advancment they haven't noticed that some orcs can be killed with a well throw pat of butter and others can nap under a pile driver without risk?

Well from a in-game perspective the Minion is the unlucky one that slipped on mud and was impaled by the PC, while the Monster is the one that manages to block a blow with their shield, or roll in time to only get cut along the arm.

From out-of-game, the Players will only know which is a Minion when they go down and if you as a DM has created a fairly good narrative to the combat, it doesn't break immersion.

 

[Korgoth]

Regardless of whether you enjoyed the game or not?

Yes.

Scenario: You play a game with a friend. You have fun while playing. You win the game. Then you find out that your friend was cheating in order to let you win. You're not miffed? I would be. The other person is essentially treating you like a child and asserting complete control over the game (which was being played under false pretenses) by deciding the outcome unilaterally.

You might as well ask if I would be happy being railroaded. No I would not.

 

[The Dude]

So, there's two things I don't like about that:
1. It's more work. I don't want to do more work unless there's a good enough reason. "Good enough" is obviously subjective and you may feel it is. At the moment, I don't.

I do not think this is true. The only person tracking NPC hit points is the DM. When the PC calls out the damage on a miss, the DM says "OK", goes to do the HP subtraction, realizes the NPC is a minion, and moves on. This rule would only involve more work if the PCs were tracking the damage applied to the minion, because then the PC would be forced to remember the unwritten exception to his/her damage-on-a-miss powers.

2. There's a rule-symmetry problem that's bothering me, and this thread is part of my exercise to nail it down. I need things to "make sense" within the context of the game. It doesn't "make sense" for a normal human to fight a Dragon with a sword, but within the D&D context of heroic fantasy it "makes sense" (to me, at least). I've played Classic, AD&D, AD&D 2nd, 3E and 3.5E, and everything has always had HP. I don't have an emotional attachment to the concept (I've played other games without them), but now we have a single system where some creatures have HP and some don't. It bothers me that such a fundamental concept doesn't apply to everyone. It's like saying they don't have an AC.

That is a legitimate concern. It is one thing to say that the rules governing NPCs are different than those governing PCs. When one of those differences is as fundamental as having level-dependent HP, its like saying the laws of physics do not apply to some folks. We are all accustomed to the rules being descriptive of the world, so it is hard to imagine creatures wandering around with only one hit point when fully healed. However, 4e is moving to rules that are descriptive of an object's relationship to the PCs. Making the transition to that view of the rules can be pretty difficult when one of the steps of that transition involves minions having 1 HP.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

If I were a player and a DM did that to me, I'd be furious. I would consider that as being treated with contempt and having my time stolen.

Haha, that's ridiculous. You would never know. Unless you cheat and peek at the DM's notes or the DM is an idiot and tells you.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You might as well ask if I would be happy being railroaded. No I would not.

Me neither. The idea of "Enemies fall when it feels right" is way too painfully narrative for me. I don't feel like I'm playing a game anymore, I feel like I'm just here to amuse the DM until he gets bored.

Minions don't really do that for me as badly, because I can accept "one hit would've killed them anyway." They *almost* do that by not dying on a miss, but with the "no one dies on a miss" house rule, it feels more "fair."