New Staff Blog: Run Away!

[Lanefan]

I'm all in favor of there being some form of guidelines for morale failure for monsters and npcs.

I like to think of the monsters I use as being alive and having feelings as well as the intelligence to know when things are getting out of hand. I have no problem with them running away or surrendering.

Having rules designed for the game means I don't have to use old rules or invent my own.

Agreed, though I'd go with guidelines rather than hard rules.

Maybe have 6 or 8 levels of morale - fanatic, stout, steady, average, shaky, cowardly, terrified (I'll leave it to others to come up with better terms) - described briefly in the DMG along with what they might represent in game terms*; then put a line in each monster write-up something like: Morale: steady in lair, average elsewhere; except fanatic when in sight of commander.

* - this shouldn't take more than half a page, total.

Lan-"easy enough to houserule in any case, regardless of edition"-efan

 

[Remathilis]

I would have used the morale rules more often if they weren't littered with a table of modifiers that were too corner case to memorize. Give me a pretty easy to remember rule (Morale: wisdom check when bloodied or commander is dead, DC XX) and I'll start using it.

Similarly, do the same for surprise and reaction rolls and I'll use them more too.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Morale was something that I didn't use in 2e, and was glad it went away in 3e. I really don't want morale appearing in every statblock in 5e, and hope it's something that can be easily ignored as a purely optional rule.

 

[am181d]

I'd rather see rules that make retreat and capture a viable option.

 

[drothgery]

I'd rather see rules that make retreat and capture a viable option.

... so don't pull a 3.x and make most monsters move faster than typical PCs (meaning the PCs can't retreat against monsters who want to pursue until they get rapid-movement magic, barring convenient terrain / crowds to hide in).

 

[Ahnehnois]

I wager you don't you reaction rolls/diplomacy in your game either...

I use them very judiciously. A successful sense motive is a hunch, not a lie detector. A successful Diplo is a nudge, not a compulsion. And for NPCs, I might give a result to the PCs to suggest to them how to react. And I don't do reaction.

 

[Sunseeker]

... so don't pull a 3.x and make most monsters move faster than typical PCs (meaning the PCs can't retreat against monsters who want to pursue until they get rapid-movement magic, barring convenient terrain / crowds to hide in).

Yeah, I always hated this in 3.x, even your typical bandits had all sorts of "we run away much faster than you!" or "we can catch you no matter how far you run!". It's really no wonder that we get bloodthirsty parties.

I do feel that this is one of the advantages to 4e's XP system, XP is awarded for completing the encounter(combat/skill/social/w.e), not killing everything within a 10-mile radius.

I use them very judiciously. A successful sense motive is a hunch, not a lie detector. A successful Diplo is a nudge, not a compulsion. And for NPCs, I might give a result to the PCs to suggest to them how to react. And I don't do reaction.

This is roughly how I do it as well. You're a person trying to convince another person either through glibness of tongue, intimidation, or wooing, and the NPC may now be favorable to you, but that doesn't mean your diplomacy skill is a Charm Person.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Ummm... No?

...
An NPC is one of hundreds or thousands of minor characters played by the single DM who has likely not written up a detailed description of the childhood traumas, motivations, hopes and dreams for every one of the 10,000 orcs in the approaching horde. A die roll is a perfectly valid tool to allow the GM to rapidly determine the response of an NPC to an unforeseen circumstance. No morale system ever demands the GM uses it, it is merely an option.

Obviously, you have a different view of NPCs than I do. I only run NPCs and monsters that I know a great deal about. Conversely, my players' characters have less than a page of backstory; for my last campaign I told them not to think about it too much and let their characters develop during the game. Also, although less time is put into their psychological development, anything I decide about their history is automatically canon, so they can have quite a bit of background real fast. I consider NPCs and PCs as equals, just played by different people.

Thus, I use (mechanical) dice rolls not to determine what choices characters make, but what the results of those choices are.

More to the point PCs decide their characters actions because that is the point of the game.

And the DM playing the NPCs is incidental? Not following here.

Do you not roll for NPC attitiudes, or do you force all your fellow players to roll their responses? Does any actual roleplaying take place or are you just doing a blind simulation?

Sure, lots of roleplaying takes place. It's the thing that happens when I'm not rolling to see how everyone reacts to everything, I just determine it based on the character's perspective.

 

[billd91]

I do feel that this is one of the advantages to 4e's XP system, XP is awarded for completing the encounter(combat/skill/social/w.e), not killing everything within a 10-mile radius.

How is this actually different from 3e's XP system? You don't have to kill everything in the encounter to have overcome it in that edition either.

 

[Sunseeker]

How is this actually different from 3e's XP system? You don't have to kill everything in the encounter to have overcome it in that edition either.

XP was generally awarded based on what you killed in the encounter. Sure, you could choose to not kill something, but when you're fighting a dozen bandits and each one gives you 200xp, there's a real incentive to kill them all in order to get the most XP. But in 4e, XP was designed to be awarded on the basis of the whole encounter. So capturing and interrogating a bandit and killing 8 of them while one ran away gave you the same XP as if you had killed all 10, or ran away from 6 of them.

XP on a per-monster basis encourages bloodthirsty playing. XP on a per-encounter basis encourages creative solutions, not simply death. Not to mention 3e basically didn't award XP for skill challenges or social encounters. 4e does. I realize a lot of people regard 4e as very game-y, but at least in terms of XP handing, I think it improved a lot in making skill and social encounters a more important part of the game by actually assigning them value instead of just being a side-dish to combat.