My Brainfart

[Henry]

What detail of the 3e block is not mirrored in the 4e block I listed from Henry?

I feel like that scene from Mallrats with Wyatt and the picture of the sailboat - only I'm not sure if KM is Wyatt, and I'm Brody, or vice versa.

KM, I guess I'm totally missing your point, so I'll bow out. But past the designers' notes on assignment of skills, languages, etc. for the NPCs, I'm totally missing what you're looking for. Sorry I couldn't help!

 

[I'm A Banana]

A SCHOONER IS A SAILBOAT!!!!

KM, I guess I'm totally missing your point, so I'll bow out. But past the designers' notes on assignment of skills, languages, etc. for the NPCs, I'm totally missing what you're looking for. Sorry I couldn't help!

No, I think that's mostly what I'm missing (and so what your description was missing). Skills, languages, motives....background stuff that I don't have to make up on the spot that can give me a launching point when the PC tries something outside the box.

I'm also missing NPC stats for mundane folks. They could be various types of humans (blacksmiths are minions), maybe...

I'm also missing actual rules for NPC and Monster allies, rather than just vague advice about taking them into account in a combat encounter (which is useful, but I'll need something more than that when I'm balancing different encounters with different power levels of monsters on each side).

Don't think you didn't help, it definitely helped me figure out exactly what I was missing here.

 

[Pbartender]

KM, I guess I'm totally missing your point, so I'll bow out. But past the designers' notes on assignment of skills, languages, etc. for the NPCs, I'm totally missing what you're looking for. Sorry I couldn't help!

I think I understand... Correct me if I'm wrong, KM.

At it's simplest, it's all about whether the stats inform the character's "personality" or vice versa. In a larger sense, it's about personal preferrence for a particular style of game preparation.

For example, KM might say something like, "This character has a high Dexterity and is trained in Acrobatics, Athletics, Stealth, Thievery and Streewise. He should be a Cat Burglar who grew up as a street urchin on the streets of a Big City." Additionally, he'd have all those skills written down ahead of time.

Whereas I would go at it from the other direction, "This character is a Cat Burglar who grew up as a street urchin on the streets of a Big City. He should have a high Dexterity and be trained in Acrobatics, Athletics, Stealth, Thievery and Streewise." What's more, if the character was a minor NPC, I wouldn't bother with any stats until I needed them, and then I'd mostly make them up using the base guidelines from the rulebooks, like those I mentioned above.

KM's problem stems from the fact that 3E was really good for the former style of DMing, because it has detailed rules for everything and everything else. The more vague and loose guidelines that govern non-combat scenarios in 4E are much more suited to the latter style.

KM misses all of those extra rules and is looking for a way adapt, adjust or add to 4E so that keep that style of game prep... because he likes it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think I understand... Correct me if I'm wrong, KM.

Nope, that's pretty durned accurate. I need some direction (in the theatre sense of the term).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think you already know this, but this is heavily influenced by DMing styles and through that adventure writing style.

Pretty much the entirety of 4e is designed assuming the DMing style and adventure writing style that the people at WOTC have been using since the beginning of 3e. Probably before that.

The idea being that you design an adventure in terms of encounters strung together by a plot. Some encounters are more open ended than others, but they are all "scenes" in the story.

Sometimes the scenes are directly related to the story, sometimes they are interesting color to add on to it.

For example:

Encounter 6: The fight with the barbarian to cross the river on the PCs way to the evil bad guys tower
Encounter 4: The tavern (A role playing encounter where the PCs can interact with anyone in the tavern, short description of the people in the tavern and their personalities. Unlikely to have any combat as the PCs are heroes and mostly good or neutral aligned, they won't kill random NPCs for fun, cause that's evil. So no combat stats are provided. Just a list of things that the NPCs know that might be helpful for their quest and the storyline if the PCs ask.)

With at least a vague idea of the order that things will happen in. Where the vast majority of things are related to the overall quest the PCs are on and assuming the PCs will stick to their quest and specifically look for clues or paths to reach the end.

This falls apart in groups that insist on doing the "odd" thing JUST because it can be done. The group that says "I want to kill the blacksmith because he looked at my funny." I've always pointed out to groups that it was pretty evil to do such things and I don't allow evil aligned PCs.

But 4e has been built around this principle. That DMs are planning their games in this fashion. So, when the PCs get to the bridge, you know it is going to be a fight with the barbarian in 99% of all cases. The PCs walk up, not knowing that there is a barbarian there. The barbarian sees them and then attacks and a battle ensues. There is no way for the PCs to make the barbarian their ally. He hates them with a passion. He won't negotiate with them, he has sworn a blood oath to kill them, etc.

His role in the adventure is to provide a bit of tension to the "scene" where they attempt to cross the bridge.

So, given that 4e has pretty much been designed for that DMing style from the ground up, perhaps its best to attempt to change your DMing style to the one the game supports best. I know you don't find it natural, but DMing style is also something learned and something that changes.

I know I used to be more about "Let the PCs do whatever they want and see what happens." But it ended up in so many games becoming aimlessly wandering narratives that mostly consisted of fist fights in taverns and urinating on beggars in the streets, while at least half the players asked me if anything interesting was going to happen in the game and getting annoyed at the other players for taking the game so far off track.

I know if someone suggested killing the blacksmith in town, even if I didn't say anything, one of the other players would certainly say, "Why are you killing a blacksmith? How does that help us accomplish our goal of stopping the evil archmage from enslaving the land? Just pay the man the 5 gold out of the 5000 you have in your pocket and deal with it and don't be so cheap."

So, I know I never need combat stats for the random NPCs around. Even if they do attack them, the default status in 4e is that all NPCs are killable in one hit, and don't have any combat training, so assume they are AC 10 with no pluses to hit.

 

[Pbartender]

Nope, that's pretty durned accurate. I need some direction (in the theatre sense of the term).

Yeah... I gotta think hard about that.

My first thought would be to simply add in the non-combat skills you need, because really, that's all you're really missing from the statblocks, I think.

So, your NPCs would have extra non-combat trained skills that aren't on the normal list of available skills. You can add as many these hobby skills as you like, but they should never have any real combat usefulness.

So, as a bonus trained skill, your cheese-lover might have Cheeses (Wis) -- which, in the spirit of the new knowledge skills, includes knowledge checks, checks for making cheese and cheese-tasting discernment all in one skill.

In other words, you'd be exactly what I do, but you would be doing it ahead of time and writing it down as a concrete skill in the statblock, rather than winging it from the personality descriptions, the way I do. Does that make sense?