Monsters are more than their stats

[Hussar]

Lizard - I know you kind of poo poo'ed the idea of rituals being the solution, but, hear me out.

We know that rituals will be in the game as a means for casting plotsy type spells - the knowledge gathering stuff, the transportation stuff, whatnot. So, let's extrapolate a bit.

While it's possible that no guidelines will be given in the PHB or the DMG for creating your own rituals, even if that's true, within about a week of the release of 4e you will have books detailing ritual creation. Let's assume for a second that there are guidelines for creating rituals in place.

So, we create a ritual that's specific to our plot - Charming the King. Now rituals will have level dependencies and other prerequisities too. So, we'll make it a half hour ritual that requires the sacrifice of a living humanoid. There, that keeps it out of the player's hands. (probably)

The ritual grants domination over the target. The target will always act according to the caster's wishes, even to the point of self sacrifice. We'll make it an instantaneous effect.

Now, detect charm/magic no longer works.

To further our storyline, we'll add in that only by viewing yourself in the Mirror of Whosits can the ritual be broken.

There, instant fix. Took me all of ten minutes to think of it. Now I have my linked campaign - discover the succubus, find the mirror, save the king.

How is this out of the realm of possibility for 4e?

 

[VannATLC]

Sure.

Nor does Twue Wuv (or eeven ramapnt lust) excuse radical and *rapid* changes in personality.

Or even:.

HAH!

You need more experience with obsessed people.

WRT to the OP..

Well, I like it, and I don't have the kind of issues that Lizard or RobertL seem to predict. Never have.

I expect a succubus to a master of seduction, without resorting to Magic. I had no issues with the Statblock as presented, and should I have wanted to introduce a succubus to control a ruler, it would be through mostly mundane means, with the renewal of the kiss for the reasons given in the stat block.

 

[hong]

If the kiss/charm is the only long-term control power the succubus has, it makes her job harder, as she has to keep working on one person a day, and has to a master of (mundane) seduction to keep others from figuring out her game. This is fine, if it's the case, and it's a good example of what I'm talking about -- by setting limits on what the creature can do in a long-term, out of combat sense, the DM is aided in building plots. ("OK, so she's going to charm the king magically...but she'll also use her Diplomacy on the High Chancellor to help control the court in general, and less...ah...subtle means on a few palace guards to get them to ambush the court magician so he can't figure out what she is.")

On the other hand if, as the OP seems to wish, the only relevant text was "Succubi seduce people, mmmkay?", the DMs job becomes a lot harder, as he has to basically design the rules for succubi before designing a plot centering on them.

Poppycock.

The DM has to design a _scenario_. He does _not_ need to design any rules to justify how that scenario might have come about. He only needs a rough idea in his head, and that can be obtained just from general background knowledge about what these monsters are, and what their schticks are. Said knowledge can be obtained from the game fluff, or even from outside sources.

This makes it EASIER to design scenarios. You no longer need to complete a magnificent edifice of rationalisations explaining how the monster's devious plan came to be. You just lay down some guidelines, set out the skill challenge -- "stop the succubus" -- and give the players their head. The cannier the succubus, and the longer that she's had to work her stuff, the tougher the challenge gets. You also no longer need six zillion layers of magic to stop one side or the other solving the plot with one spell.

This does not lead to railroading either. If anything, railroading occurs when the DM has put together that magnificent edifice of rationalisations, and then cannot accept how the players can dismantle it in 10 minutes.

Of course, to do this you need to give up this strange notion that the rules form the physics of the game world. But this is very easy achieved, by simply not thinking too hard about fantasy.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My guess is that the "plot rules" will not be part of monsters anymore, but part of the DMG.
Skill Challenges, Rituals, and whatever else we can come up with. This kind of information works best in the DMG.

Remember - many months ago - when one of the designer asked for brainstorming on how to organize a DMG, or what questions a DM might want the DMG to answer?
Stuff like "How do I run a chase?". I think this might be a good indicator that my guess isn't so bad.

The source of "ruling" plots are in the DMG, so you don't just accidentally stumble upon them when reading a stat block, but that you can search for them consciously.

 

[Lizard]

How is this out of the realm of possibility for 4e?

It's not, but based on everything we've seen so far, I'm losing faith the ritual rules will be anything but "Make something up".

If there are rules like "Long term effects of any sort require a ritual. Here's six pages of rules for setting the power of a ritual, the difficulty of it, changing these by setting requirements, and so on", then I'll be happy, or at least content. If it's just some quick handwaving without boundaries, I have to ask again -- what's the point of paying for rules?

Given the pit fiend's stat block just said "Once every 100 years, the pit fiend can use a ritual to grant a wish", and the lich's stat block said "some liches know a ritual to create a phylactery", with no actual stats on either ritual, I have to worry that the whole "ritual" system is just going to be pure DM fiat.

 

[Lizard]

This makes it EASIER to design scenarios. You no longer need to complete a magnificent edifice of rationalisations explaining how the monster's devious plan came to be. You just lay down some guidelines, set out the skill challenge -- "stop the succubus" -- and give the players their head. The cannier the succubus, and the longer that she's had to work her stuff, the tougher the challenge gets. You also no longer need six zillion layers of magic to stop one side or the other solving the plot with one spell.

And if your idea of a fun game is a long series of rolling dice and tallying up successes without any specific actions being taken, then you'll enjoy this. I think there's more to a scenario than "Difficulty 30, successes required 6". YMMV. This is a good example of what I've been talking about:

30 seconds of combat: Played out round by round in glorious detail, with plenty of special abilities, cool powers, and tinkering with small options to give tiny, but possibly crucial, bonuses.

Three hours of diplomacy: Everyone pick their highest skill, come up with a justification for how it's going to be useful, and roll. Tally your success or failure. All done? Good. Now, lets move on to some butt-kickin'!

Even setting that aside, I think it's treating players with some degree of contempt to tell them "Stop wondering how it all works or how this situation occurred! It did! This is the plot! Deal with it and stop asking me 'Why didn't they do this?' or 'Why didn't they do that?' Because if they did, there'd be no plot! That's why!"

It's crappy when authors do it (cough Goblet of Fire cough), and it's crappy when DMs do it.

This does not lead to railroading either. If anything, railroading occurs when the DM has put together that magnificent edifice of rationalisations, and then cannot accept how the players can dismantle it in 10 minutes.

The DM needs to be able to think on his feet more. If the players destroy your plot in ten minutes, make up another. Fast.

Of course, to do this you need to give up this strange notion that the rules form the physics of the game world. But this is very easy achieved, by simply not thinking too hard about fantasy.

From the time I was a young child, people have told me not to think so much about all sorts of things, from religion to fantasy. I have never learned to heed their advice. Sorry.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's not, but based on everything we've seen so far, I'm losing faith the ritual rules will be anything but "Make something up".

If there are rules like "Long term effects of any sort require a ritual. Here's six pages of rules for setting the power of a ritual, the difficulty of it, changing these by setting requirements, and so on", then I'll be happy, or at least content. If it's just some quick handwaving without boundaries, I have to ask again -- what's the point of paying for rules?

Given the pit fiend's stat block just said "Once every 100 years, the pit fiend can use a ritual to grant a wish", and the lich's stat block said "some liches know a ritual to create a phylactery", with no actual stats on either ritual, I have to worry that the whole "ritual" system is just going to be pure DM fiat.

I don't think it will be pure DM fiat. Rituals are available to PCs, this means there must be clear guidelines to avoid giving the PCs an over-powered ritual.

Furthermore, the Tiers excerpt imply that there are pre-defined rituals (Like the Raise Dead ritual). I doubt they created the rituals without any guidelines in mind. That wouldn't fit the general design approach to 4E - monsters for example also follow clear guidelines.

My general assumption is that the DMG will contain this information, since it is important for him, and you don't really want the DM to search through the PHB or the MM to find details on stuff he needs to run an effective game. Everything that only the DM needs to know about has to be in the DMG.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

And if your idea of a fun game is a long series of rolling dice and tallying up successes without any specific actions being taken, then you'll enjoy this. I think there's more to a scenario than "Difficulty 30, successes required 6". YMMV. This is a good example of what I've been talking about:

30 seconds of combat: Played out round by round in glorious detail, with plenty of special abilities, cool powers, and tinkering with small options to give tiny, but possibly crucial, bonuses.

Three hours of diplomacy: Everyone pick their highest skill, come up with a justification for how it's going to be useful, and roll. Tally your success or failure. All done? Good. Now, lets move on to some butt-kickin'!

You know, I sounds kinda cool if there was a "social combat" system, where characters can gain social powers. But, on the other hand, will this not turn everything into a pure "game", with little imagination involved? I really don't know.
What I know is that 3E social encounters could be boiled down to this: Roll Gather Information, or roll Diplomacy. Occasionally, you'd roll Sense Motive. You don't even have to justify why you're rolling the skill. You just beat the fixed DC. Even if I justified, it was only one roll - there is only so much storytelling that I will (or can) do to cover one roll.
If I have to roll 6 times, I have to come up with more. I can even react to results.

Even setting that aside, I think it's treating players with some degree of contempt to tell them "Stop wondering how it all works or how this situation occurred! It did! This is the plot! Deal with it and stop asking me 'Why didn't they do this?' or 'Why didn't they do that?' Because if they did, there'd be no plot! That's why!"

Well, looking at the Paizo Adventure Paths, there is a lot of stuff for which there didn't seem to be any hard rules. I mean, where is the "Tear apart a dimensional rift so that prisoner demons from the Abyss can invade Oerth"-spell in the PHB?
Most of the rules for anything here were made up, and the players could never have figured out do something like that them self. The only stuff that was important was the fluff describing what happened, and the rules how to stop the whole thing.

It's crappy when authors do it (cough Goblet of Fire cough), and it's crappy when DMs do it.

The DM needs to be able to think on his feet more. If the players destroy your plot in ten minutes, make up another. Fast.

If I was a better DM, I would do so. And I'll promise, I'll try to improve, get better improvising, get better at thinking on my feet more. But it would be nice if someone gave me some more advice on how to do it, or if there were some guidelines that helped me improve myself. Maybe you could write something down? Or maybe I'll wait what the DMG 4E will have to offer. (And I suppose I should also look at the CoC d20 book, rumours say it has a ton of good advice.)

From the time I was a young child, people have told me not to think so much about all sorts of things, from religion to fantasy. I have never learned to heed their advice. Sorry.

Think as much as you like, but there is stuff where you can over-analyze. If it's about your immortal soul or how you behave towards others, it might be worth thinking a lot. If it's about how to have fun pretending to be an elf, do only the thinking that helps you having fun. That's my advice.

 

[small pumpkin man]

It's not, but based on everything we've seen so far, I'm losing faith the ritual rules will be anything but "Make something up".

If there are rules like "Long term effects of any sort require a ritual. Here's six pages of rules for setting the power of a ritual, the difficulty of it, changing these by setting requirements, and so on", then I'll be happy, or at least content. If it's just some quick handwaving without boundaries, I have to ask again -- what's the point of paying for rules?

Given the pit fiend's stat block just said "Once every 100 years, the pit fiend can use a ritual to grant a wish", and the lich's stat block said "some liches know a ritual to create a phylactery", with no actual stats on either ritual, I have to worry that the whole "ritual" system is just going to be pure DM fiat.

Chapter 9 of the PHB is "Rituals", link.I doubt they would get their own chapter if they were just "make stuff up".

 

[Lizard]

Chapter 9 of the PHB is "Rituals", link.I doubt they would get their own chapter if they were just "make stuff up".

You'd think, but it could simply be a listing of rituals by level with no idea how they were built.

Or it could be exactly what it should be, a set of detailed rules and guidelines. We'll see.