Monsters are more than their stats

[Surgoshan]

Whoa, sorry. Tangent.

Not to worry, players always try to break the game.

 

[ShockMeSane]

You know, the concept of the PCs "gaining control" of a succubus is interesting. What do they do with it? Do they go on a charming spree? What on earth could they blackmail such a powerful individual with anyway? That they know who it really is? Why should that matter to it? It has the king under its thumb. Any attempt to claim that the king was being controlled would probably lead to civil war at the very best. And it is something that can shapeshift at will instantly. Into unique individuals. It might just decide to kill the king and take his place. Unless you've got a perfect "Detect Devil" spell, you're not going to be able to prove that it's not the king.

Maybe it would intentionally let the PCs sort of, kind of expose it to split the kingdom in civil war and then just vanish into the war, reaping souls with the promise of a last good time in this era of senseless violence the PCs have plunged the kingdom into.

Whoa, sorry. Tangent.

Honestly, thats like 4 kinds of awesome. It kind of underlines the point that yes, a Succubus provides a lot of interesting challenges to both the players and the DM. The blackmailing thing was kind of ridiculous I admit, but who knows, there might be something more valuable than souls it wants that the king can't provide it, and if a player can convince me, that might start a whole new story But yea, I just don't see why this information needs to be in the MM.... it provides way more opportunities for adventure than any statblock could ever hope to.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Not to go crazy but ...

If the target is still under the effect of this power at the end of the encounter, the succubus can sustain the effect indefinitely by kissing the target once per day. The succubus can affect only one target at a time with its charming kiss.

Doesn't the succubus have their "domination" power defined right there? Thus seperating the King and Succubus for 24 hours would be a way to break the enchantment ... And there are tons of ways to do that, which leaves it open for interesting ideas, such as trying to distract both by taking advantage of the Succubus trying to avoid revealing her true nature OR her influence on the King.

Now, they don't actually explain what her charm "does" to NPCs ... that is left open to the DM. So whether it's a love spell, and how far it goes beyond "preventing harm to the Succubus" is up to him. But there is definitely a way to end it written into the rules. [Although other ways of getting the King to snap out of it, like confronting him with the reality of the Succubus' true nature, is something the DM could add.

 

[Zweischneid]

Why have rules, then? For those face-to-face situations where hard-and-fast rules (for combat, especially) are required. However, you only need rules for those situations, not everything that doesn't concern the PCs... or that is part of setting up unique challenges for an adventure in any case.

At least, that's my impression of 4e. What do you think?

Cheers!

I get this impression as well, but I still don't think it's a good design choice. Why, because hard-and-fast rules (for combat, especially) are (to me at least) much easier to fudge up on the fly than the kings-quest-fluff-sort of things.

At the cost of repeating, something I've noted in another thread earlier:

First, it is IMO opinion not the DMs job to give the fluff, but the job of every single person sitting on the table. I may be the DM, but that certainly doesn't mean I don't want to be entertained as well on my RPG-nights and listen to one or more of the players going wild with their imagination.

Second, there are both DMs and Players out there who are able to add interesting fluff to the rules, but they are in my experience few and far inbetween. Good fiction is not an easy thing to do and it is thrice as hard if you'll need to make it up on the fly (which in turn makes in harder again for players who don't know ahead what is coming than for the DM who could potentially prep).

By consequence, this means that I can use an RPG that gives only the crunch and turn it into an enjoyable evening with only a selected number of creative people who can draw on their imagination to bring a world (or a character) alive at the table.

If, however, an RPG comes with the flavour attached, the potential base of people I can create an entertaining game with becomes much, much wider.

The 'creative' people can easily ignore the 'official' fluff and still spin their own thing, they need not adhere by the official fluff given, but the less gifted ones however have something to fall back on and use as inspiration (or straight out of the book if necessary) once it's their turn to do things.

So, the more official fluff there is, the more good games you'll play, because there's more people to play with. It's that simple really. The less official fluff there is, the harder and fewer inbetween the games will be you can look back at and not despair at having wasted yet another day of you're life at a table with some ********** who just doesn't make the effort to translate rules into story.

By the same reason, I think providing fluff is so much more important for a good RPG than providing crunch.

If the crunch is bad or missing, it takes one guy (i.e. the DM) to sit down and fix it.

If the fluff is bad or missing, it takes everyone at the table to cover it, with the final result depending on the weakest link.

If the weakest link is 'official' fluff in the book, I know ahead of time that this is the safty net my game will not fall below.

It is IMO an increasingly inherent hypocracy of 4e design that they want to make the game 'user-friendly' but provide increasingly less help for people on that elusive and difficult skill of creating evocative fluff.

 

[ShockMeSane]

Not to go crazy but ...

If the target is still under the effect of this power at the end of the encounter, the succubus can sustain the effect indefinitely by kissing the target once per day. The succubus can affect only one target at a time with its charming kiss.

Doesn't the succubus have their "domination" power defined right there? Thus seperating the King and Succubus for 24 hours would be a way to break the enchantment ... And there are tons of ways to do that, which leaves it open for interesting ideas, such as trying to distract both by taking advantage of the Succubus trying to avoid revealing her true nature OR her influence on the King.

Now, they don't actually explain what her charm "does" to NPCs ... that is left open to the DM. So whether it's a love spell, and how far it goes beyond "preventing harm to the Succubus" is up to him. But there is definitely a way to end it written into the rules. [Although other ways of getting the King to snap out of it, like confronting him with the reality of the Succubus' true nature, is something the DM could add.

And while all of that is totally valid, it is equally valid to say that beyond the combat stats we have for the Succubus, she has access to a long term form of domination. Whether it requires sexual congress, a 5 minute spell (while your kissed thrall watches on gleefully), or 3 drops of the victims blood and a piece of their hair, none of that matters outside of the context that the DM wants to use it. Maybe your Succubus can do no more than charm with a kiss as a long term effect, and maybe it can do more than is written in that statblock. Really, it's up to the DM and it isn't much work to make these kind of decisions. In fact, if you think those kind of decisions are work, I don't really think DMing is for you, as that is one of the most fun, imaginitive parts of the job.

 

[Foundry of Decay]

For myself and my group, this is a plus way of playing.

I was personally miserable having to fumble through every rule attached to the mid-level monsters (We just didn't have it in us to get to the higher levels of 3e) trying to come up with unique ways to use the monsters abilities that were hard coded. Now I have flexibility. If I want to slap a certain unique 'power' onto a creature as a plot twist, I'm free to do so within certain boundaries without having to waste copious amounts of time combing through hundreds of monsters to find the 'right one'

Again, this is just for myself and my group. Individual DM's/groups will have differing outlooks.

 

[ShockMeSane]

I get this impression as well, but I still don't think it's a good design choice. Why, because hard-and-fast rules (for combat, especially) are (to me at least) much easier to fudge up on the fly than the kings-quest-fluff-sort of things.

At the cost of repeating, something I've noted in another thread earlier:

First, it is IMO opinion not the DMs job to give the fluff, but the job of every single person sitting on the table. I may be the DM, but that certainly doesn't mean I don't want to be entertained as well on my RPG-nights and listen to one or more of the players going wild with their imagination.

Second, there are both DMs and Players out there who are able to add interesting fluff to the rules, but they are in my experience few and far inbetween. Good fiction is not an easy thing to do and it is thrice as hard if you'll need to make it up on the fly (which in turn makes in harder again for players who don't know ahead what is coming than for the DM who could potentially prep).

By consequence, this means that I can use an RPG that gives only the crunch and turn it into an enjoyable evening with only a selected number of creative people who can draw on their imagination to bring a world (or a character) alive at the table.

If, however, an RPG comes with the flavour attached, the potential base of people I can create an entertaining game with becomes much, much wider.

The 'creative' people can easily ignore the 'official' fluff and still spin their own thing, they need not adhere by the official fluff given, but the less gifted ones however have something to fall back on and use as inspiration (or straight out of the book if necessary) once it's their turn to do things.

So, the more official fluff there is, the more good games you'll play, because there's more people to play with. It's that simple really. The less official fluff there is, the harder and fewer inbetween the games will be you can look back at and not despair at having wasted yet another day of you're life at a table with some ********** who just doesn't make the effort to translate rules into story.

By the same reason, I think providing fluff is so much more important for a good RPG than providing crunch.

If the crunch is bad or missing, it takes one guy (i.e. the DM) to sit down and fix it.

If the fluff is bad or missing, it takes everyone at the table to cover it, with the final result depending on the weakest link.

If the weakest link is 'official' fluff in the book, I know ahead of time that this is the safty net my game will not fall below.

It is IMO an increasingly inherent hypocracy of 4e design that they want to make the game 'user-friendly' but provide increasingly less help for people on that elusive and difficult skill of creating evocative fluff.

I just wanted to respond to this because it is the most articulated reasoning I have seen as to why someone might want more informative fluff. I truly do appreciate the effort, as it definitely gives me more perspective into the lives of other games. I must admit that I have been sequestered off with my little group of 6 or so gamers for about the last 8 years, and I think I'm a little spoiled. My players are great at coming up with stuff off the fly, imagining uses for their heroic skills outside of combat, and roleplaying every encounter. I think I must be unusually blessed, but because it has been the status quo for so long I take it for granted.

But still, I am a little hard-pressed to believe that if the DM doesn't make up an on-the-fly rule for how a Succubus' long term domination works (when none exist in the stat block), less creative players will collapse in an effort to solve it. I say this with absolutely no offense intended, but if your players MUST look at MM entries before they fight any given monster to make sure they know how to deal with its abilities, haven't you lost about 80% of the magic of D&D already?

Now, I know I'm the kind of DM where a player can say "20! I crit the Kobold for 24 points! A mighty blow!" and I respond, "The kobold flinches from your strike, his eyes bursting into a crimson glare as his staff is engulfed with shadowy tendrils, which last out to engulf you." with barely a raised eyebrow and (more commonly) a comment about how "this kobold is a little stronger than usual" from my players. Ok, that might be a somewhat extreme example

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Hmm some very narrow approaches here.

Try expanding the scenario.

The PCs come to suspect that someone is manipulating the king, their suspect comes down to 4 individuals, 2 women, and 2 men. 1 of the women is the Queen, 1 of the men is the Prince. The other woman is a powerful noblewoman, a member of the king's personal council and some whisper his lover. The other man is also a powerful nobleman, perhaps well known for indecent dealings. Its a kingdom where nobles regularly great each other by kissing either cheeks or hands. Now if the PCs kill one of these people they all get executed for treason or at least murder, so the game becomes about finding who the succubus is and how to expose it.

Options available - kill the suspects, investigate the suspects, ignore the potential repercusions, or search for a way to find and expose the succubus.

The last option is where the Mirror of Pelor idea fits in.

Now all you need to do is put something into the situation to make things worse - such as a pending war with a neighbouring kingdom.

Consider the Three Musketeers, make Cardinal Richelieu the Succubus, or use the alternate telling of the story in The Musketeer where Fabre "The Man in Black" would be the succubus.

Did any of this require 4E, not really, does the 4E rule set support this sort of story telling well? It does IMO, and better than 3E did where the first options would be to hit the spell books for a solution, forcing contrived means to prevent that from happening.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I am so incredibly tired of absolutist statements like "Flavourful setting material is easy, balanced mechanics are the hard part the game should give you!" and "Rules for combat and whatnot are pretty simple to hammer out, it's the creative worldbuilding and plotting that I need from my books!"

Both sides need to pull their heads out of the sand and realise that neither position is true for all gamers.. Moreover, neither position represents a majority. You simply cannot make an argument about how Wizards of the Coast should be designing the game based on either idea, because it's just reflective of your biases and desires - not the market's.

 

[Victim]

By the same reason, I think providing fluff is so much more important for a good RPG than providing crunch.

If the crunch is bad or missing, it takes one guy (i.e. the DM) to sit down and fix it.

If the fluff is bad or missing, it takes everyone at the table to cover it, with the final result depending on the weakest link.

If the weakest link is 'official' fluff in the book, I know ahead of time that this is the safty net my game will not fall below.

I disagree. From what I've seen, most people sitting down trying to fix crunch they don't like usually break things worse.

And bad fluff usually only applies within a single setting (or cluster of related settings). Since many DMs like building their own campaign worlds, the fluff in books is at best inspirational.

There are plenty of settings to rip off for fluff.

However, whether a book is providing crunch or fluff, it should be good at that. For core rule books, the rules are far more important IMO. On the other hand, a product like a campaign setting is probably going rightfully live or die on its fluff.