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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7643553" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>I mean, you can make whatever assumptions or extrapolations you want, about 'off camera' or glossed over sections, because they're not covered - you can also not bother doing so.</p><p></p><p> Things /do/ work very differently off camera, when you're making a movie. On-camera, you have a set, script, actors, lighting, foley, post-production, OMFG, so much stuff /working/ to make the scene. Off-camera: nothing. That's working pretty differently. </p><p></p><p>Things also work differently on-camera depending on the nature of the scene. Time compression, for instance. If the self-destruct device is going off in one hour, the first 45 minutes may take 5 minutes on screen, the next 12 twice as long, and the last minute may take 5 or 10 minutes, as /each/ characters last minute of action is examined in minute detail.</p><p></p><p>The same things happen in RPGs constantly. Minions? Really no different.</p><p></p><p> Obviously. If it were, it wouldn't be 'a model of genre fiction,' it'd just be "genre fiction."*</p><p></p><p>Often you do in fiction, too. Sometimes prettymuch exclusively. Ripley, for instance, fought an Alien for a whole movie, then, next movie, a bunch of aliens, that were just like it, yet died a whole lot faster, then a big-bad Alien Queen that was at least as hard to finish as the original. </p><p></p><p>It's not unfair to note that an alternate solution could go in a different direction, but the 4e solution of secondary roles /is/ a perfectly valid solution - and, a powerful one, in that it allows greater ranges of levels /and/ competence, to be 'modeled' (or 'generated,' pem) by functional play. That'd be modeling an entirely different story arc. What's more, it'd be making the fiction being modeled a slave to the mechanics doing the modeling, which is the exact opposite of the point of modeling, in the first place. </p><p>Really, looking at it that way, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's idea of 'generating' rather than 'modeling' fiction makes more sense.</p><p></p><p>It's a less effective solution to the same issue, which is why I brought it up. 5e manages to cover 20 levels, ~8 of them (4-11) , over which, most character don't get any better, at all, at most things, and only a little better - +4 - at things they're trained in. Is that 'zero to hero?' Does it really make sense alongside having 10 times the hps? 4 times the attacks? 5 times the damage dice? 11 times the slots? 40 times the spell points? But only 20 or 40% (depending how you like to talk %s) better at a skill?</p><p></p><p>It's not, well, /internally consistent/. ;P</p><p></p><p>There's no rounding. All 4e monsters of the same level & secondary role have the same xp value. No fiddliness. When buiding encounters you can largely skip adding up xp, and just go by levels & secondary role.</p><p></p><p>Audience? Consumers? Whatever. If the point is the setting, not the PCs, the PCs are just the spoons the players eat up whatever you serve them with, and the player role is ultimately passive.</p><p></p><p>That's back to the point of the game being the PCs, because only the setting they /actually interact with/ matters. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>* - no matter how intentionally or not, nor how disjointed or not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7643553, member: 996"] I mean, you can make whatever assumptions or extrapolations you want, about 'off camera' or glossed over sections, because they're not covered - you can also not bother doing so. Things /do/ work very differently off camera, when you're making a movie. On-camera, you have a set, script, actors, lighting, foley, post-production, OMFG, so much stuff /working/ to make the scene. Off-camera: nothing. That's working pretty differently. Things also work differently on-camera depending on the nature of the scene. Time compression, for instance. If the self-destruct device is going off in one hour, the first 45 minutes may take 5 minutes on screen, the next 12 twice as long, and the last minute may take 5 or 10 minutes, as /each/ characters last minute of action is examined in minute detail. The same things happen in RPGs constantly. Minions? Really no different. Obviously. If it were, it wouldn't be 'a model of genre fiction,' it'd just be "genre fiction."* Often you do in fiction, too. Sometimes prettymuch exclusively. Ripley, for instance, fought an Alien for a whole movie, then, next movie, a bunch of aliens, that were just like it, yet died a whole lot faster, then a big-bad Alien Queen that was at least as hard to finish as the original. It's not unfair to note that an alternate solution could go in a different direction, but the 4e solution of secondary roles /is/ a perfectly valid solution - and, a powerful one, in that it allows greater ranges of levels /and/ competence, to be 'modeled' (or 'generated,' pem) by functional play. That'd be modeling an entirely different story arc. What's more, it'd be making the fiction being modeled a slave to the mechanics doing the modeling, which is the exact opposite of the point of modeling, in the first place. Really, looking at it that way, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's idea of 'generating' rather than 'modeling' fiction makes more sense. It's a less effective solution to the same issue, which is why I brought it up. 5e manages to cover 20 levels, ~8 of them (4-11) , over which, most character don't get any better, at all, at most things, and only a little better - +4 - at things they're trained in. Is that 'zero to hero?' Does it really make sense alongside having 10 times the hps? 4 times the attacks? 5 times the damage dice? 11 times the slots? 40 times the spell points? But only 20 or 40% (depending how you like to talk %s) better at a skill? It's not, well, /internally consistent/. ;P There's no rounding. All 4e monsters of the same level & secondary role have the same xp value. No fiddliness. When buiding encounters you can largely skip adding up xp, and just go by levels & secondary role. Audience? Consumers? Whatever. If the point is the setting, not the PCs, the PCs are just the spoons the players eat up whatever you serve them with, and the player role is ultimately passive. That's back to the point of the game being the PCs, because only the setting they /actually interact with/ matters. * - no matter how intentionally or not, nor how disjointed or not. [/QUOTE]
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