D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Micah Sweet]

I never used the word priority.
However my table is currently 15th level, so it is pretty important to me that when there is combat it doesn't devolve into a boring slog-fest. Which means I'm always looking at ways to make it interesting.
TBH minions is a concept I had forgotten until this discussion.


I tend to think we all game to have fun.
For all my sins, I'm the 4everDM, and I host practically all the time.
Having my mates come over, enjoy a good meal, share some laughs and live out some memorable scenes with the eagerness to play again is what it is all about for me.

If there are tools that can help me do that in a way that works with the fiction and that can harmonise with the mechanics of 5e, I'm not going to say no.

Next session sees the PCs with their allies face off dozens of gargoyles as part of a welcoming force for a dragon's lair. Now the published adventure has around 30 or so, but I can make it much more if I use minions/mooks (adjusted with Damage Threshold).
And then use the 5e mob rules for damage dealt to the PCs and their allies.
There will also be a storm giant quintessent that uses her Legendary Action Become One with the Storm that is essentially monster-as-environment in 5e.

I don't think we game for different reasons, I think some of us accept that D&D does simulation less well than what we believed it to be back in the day and for that reason have a greater degree of freedom.
.

This last statement is pretty judgy. "Some people accept that I'm right about this, but some are still wrong". Not a very accepting and open-minded view of the equally valid and equally subjective opinions of other people IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just reread the section and quoted the text of the rules. They're quite clear. There have to be X successes before Y failures and every character has to contribute. The most the DM is allowed to do if running as written is to add a +/-2 or allow a skill they hadn't thought of.

I don't know why 4e fans keep injecting later interpretations and personal opinions about the SC rules into a discussion specifically using the original source as if you're somehow wrong.

 

[AnotherGuy]

This last statement is pretty judgy. "Some people accept that I'm right about this, but some are still wrong". Not a very accepting and open-minded view of the equally valid and equally subjective opinions of other people IMO.

And others of us accept that D&D does simulation well enough.

I took a long time with that last sentence. No judgement was intended but rather an explanation as to where that freedom of design originates from.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The idea behind it wasn't bad and I kind of wish they had spent more effort on them than just using them for chases.

It's difficult to have a non-combat system that flexible enough to cover the wide variety of encounters skill challenges were designed for, I'm not sure what a better system would look like. Then again I'm not a game designer.

Always felt WotC and perhaps even the DMsGuild have dropped the ball on this!

 

[Thomas Shey]

My impression is that GURPS is so toolset-y that I put it in the quite flexible corner. I had GURPS in mind when writing that.

GURPS has a pretty fair number of plug-in systems that modify or outright replace extent rules. That probably describes most books for it that aren't setting books or, basically, gear books.

 

[Deset Gled]

GURPS has a pretty fair number of plug-in systems that modify or outright replace extent rules. That probably describes most books for it that aren't setting books or, basically, gear books.

Yes, it's a very general use system for an RPG.

 

[nevin]

The problem, as you say, is that virtually no game actually talks seriously about what high-level play is actually like at the table.

That's true I've had DM's call anything over 8 high level. For me it's anything over 12. I've had some tell me it's 18 or 29 plus. But it's never really been quantified by any official source.

But I'd really rather decide myself than have someone quantify it for me.

 

[Faolyn]

There may have been a save or Dex check involved, I don't remember. Or, they may have been surprised by the trap (they'd for sure have got a surprise roll) in which case they'd have been sitting ducks.

I do, in terms of in-fiction consistency.

Truth be told, I have the same problem with "wandering monsters" in many modules. The one I'm running right now, for example, has wandering monsters that can't be explained and that the dungeon has nowhere to otherwise put, meaning I've had to amend that table considerably. A different module I just bought and read through yesterday, however, has the "wandering monsters" in fact be inhabitants of the place going about their daily lives, which makes far more sense (no surprise given it's a Jennell Jaquays module).

D&D worlds are inherently inconsistent. Every part of D&D is and has always been inconsistent with some other part of it. That there's suddenly another half-dozen pirates is no more inconsistent than any other part of the game, and will only be a problem if the players somehow obtain 100% proof of the number of pirates there were in the first place--and very few parties are willing to go that far.

Which leads me to think, if you're willing to clobber player agency in that way what else are you willing to do to it? How much agency will I actually have over my character and what it can do in the fiction?

I don't think not running for jerks with is clobbering player agency. And yes, I would say that if you play characters who are willing, ready, and able to backstab other PCs to the point that they can't even look out for traps because they're too busy protecting themselves from their own teammates, that is being a jerk. Maybe you don't consider that to be jerkiness, but I do.

Sometimes the game is just a backdrop for whatever shenanigans they want to get up to. Fine with me, and as they kept laughing all session and coming back for more I wasn't concerned in the least.

Do they actually engage with the adventure at all? Do they engage just to derail it with their madcap ways? I mean, if all my players wanted to do was shenanigans, I'd stop prepping stuff. I wouldn't need it, after all. Heck, I'd find some GMless game to play or figure out how to use Mythic GM Emulator and join in.

Me, I'll just fight fire with fire. I might not start anything but I reserve the right to finish anything.
And yes, sometimes characters do get run out of parties for just this reason...and the reverse; I've seen situations where it's the trustworthy one that gets run out because the less-savoury types don't want to get ratted out.

As the saying goes, fighting fire with fire just gets everyone burned. And the other saying is that you shouldn't deal with out-of-game issues in-game. If the players are choosing to play backstabbers rather than people who will work with the party, then the players need to be spoken to, not "run out" in-game. That doesn't solve anything since the behaviors keep continuing.

 

[Faolyn]

So just change the scenario to not have minions? I'm not following.

Why not? Many people view it as cool to be able to mow down tons of baddies on their way to the major battle.

The scenario was simple. Ogre leader is threatening the town and blackmailing them. The DM wants the leader to have a bunch of followers without blowing out the XP budget. The characters through clever play, scouting and a bit of luck figure out how to set up an ambush. They get the commoner townsfolk helping.

This is where it falls apart. The townsfolk were just supposed to be a distraction, throw some rocks down at the ogres and run away causing confusion and maybe some of the ogres chasing the townsfolk. Except the commoners start throwing rocks and ogre minions are dropping like flies.

I suppose the DM could have ignored the fact that they were minions, could have just had the commoners always miss or something else. But that's just papering over the issue.

It could be a badly done adventure. It could also be that the commoners were bolstered by having high-level adventurers at their back and thus were able to stand up to the monsters that would otherwise have caused them to cower in fear and helplessness.

I don't see a problem here. Or if I do, it's that D&D4e may have decided that "dropping like flies" means that the ogres were killed outright, rather than simply defeated--dead, unconscious, running away, surrendering--like they are in, say, Daggerheart. But I don't know 4e's rules for monsters at 0 hp.

It's like in Lord of the Rings, where whatsisname, Bard, killed Smaug with a single arrow because he managed to hit the one space where there was a missing scale. Nevermind that even if it was some super arrow of slaying, Bard probably wasn't a thief/rogue with a high backstab modifier/sneak attack dice, and nevermind that losing a scale wouldn't actually alter Smaug's AC, and nevermind that an arrow at that range probably wouldn't have the oomph to pierce all the way through the dragon's keel and into his heart, and nevermind that that roll required, like, a natural 20 to hope to hit. We accept all that because it was badass.

And so is the idea of a bunch of commoners being rallied well enough to drive off ogres.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why not? Many people view it as cool to be able to mow down tons of baddies on their way to the major battle.


It could be a badly done adventure. It could also be that the commoners were bolstered by having high-level adventurers at their back and thus were able to stand up to the monsters that would otherwise have caused them to cower in fear and helplessness.

I don't see a problem here. Or if I do, it's that D&D4e may have decided that "dropping like flies" means that the ogres were killed outright, rather than simply defeated--dead, unconscious, running away, surrendering--like they are in, say, Daggerheart. But I don't know 4e's rules for monsters at 0 hp.

It's like in Lord of the Rings, where whatsisname, Bard, killed Smaug with a single arrow because he managed to hit the one space where there was a missing scale. Nevermind that even if it was some super arrow of slaying, Bard probably wasn't a thief/rogue with a high backstab modifier/sneak attack dice, and nevermind that losing a scale wouldn't actually alter Smaug's AC, and nevermind that an arrow at that range probably wouldn't have the oomph to pierce all the way through the dragon's keel and into his heart, and nevermind that that roll required, like, a natural 20 to hope to hit. We accept all that because it was badass.

And so is the idea of a bunch of commoners being rallied well enough to drive off ogres.

Fair enough. Personally I tend to give "Rule of Cool" a lot less credit in games than I do in stories.