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

[Umbran]

If they're different mechanical representations of the same creature, then it's broken. A ten year old with a rock will kill the minion in 1 round 5% of the time, but has no chance against the ogre with 111 hit points. 5% of the time the ten year old dies to an ogre with 110 hit points.

That's either not the same ogre, or it's two different mechanically broken representations.

Only if your goal is to strictly simulate the physicality of the ogre (and other monsters).

If you are trying to represent the narrative role of the ogre, then it can have different representations depending on the narrative state in which you encounter it.

I suggest to you that the moment when a single ten-year-old human child faces down an ogre, the narrative role of that ogre is probably not "minion", so the encounter you are envisioning should never take place.

Bringing up 10-year-ols should be a clue that you're barking up a strange tree, since D&D is not centered on 10-year-olds without PC class levels. Monster stat blocks are designed for pitting against a PC in play, not for pitting against children in theorycrafting.

Your discussion will go to weird places when your argument is based on using game elements for things they weren't really designed to do. Talking about using ogre statblocks against 10-year-old commoners is kind of like talking about using a hammer to drive a screw. You can do it, but it doesn't tell you much about the typical reality of building a backyard deck.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So how do you tell the difference between "thought up yesterday," "thought up ten minutes ago," and "thought up right here on the spot"?

Plausibility and judgment.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Must've missed that.


Another reason I'm glad I didn't buy that. What an odd decision. I wonder why WotC decided that.

So players don't complain about "losing their agency"?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Only if your goal is to strictly simulate the physicality of the ogre (and other monsters).

If you are trying to represent the narrative role of the ogre, then it can have different representations depending on the narrative state in which you encounter it.

Weren't people telling me earlier that minion mechanics weren't about narrative, but were instead Gamist in nature? Or were you not in that camp?

 

[AlViking]

Only if your goal is to strictly simulate the physicality of the ogre (and other monsters).

If you are trying to represent the narrative role of the ogre, then it can have different representations depending on the narrative state in which you encounter it.

I suggest to you that the moment when a single ten-year-old human child faces down an ogre, the narrative role of that ogre is probably not "minion", so the encounter you are envisioning should never take place.

Bringing up 10-year-ols should be a clue that you're barking up a strange tree, since D&D is not centered on 10-year-olds without PC class levels. Monster stat blocks are designed for pitting against a PC in play, not for pitting against children in theorycrafting.

Your discussion will go to weird places when your argument is based on using game elements for things they weren't really designed to do. Talking about using ogre statblocks against 10-year-old commoners is kind of like talking about using a hammer to drive a screw. You can do it, but it doesn't tell you much about the typical reality of building a backyard deck.

But that goes back to whether or not someone wants monsters to just fill a narrative role and did minions fill that role. If I want a game that leaned into narrative tropes, I wouldn't play D&D.

It's a matter of preference of course but for me minions just never worked. They always felt like a cheat code in a video game, a "You win" button. It was like they wanted to do a narrative game but only for some things and not others.

If I were to use them (I rarely did) I would have something like a "faded" condition, where the monster, of whatever sort, had been affected by some debilitating curse. Not only do they look different but there's also an in-world reason for them to only have 1 HP.

Meanwhile it was just weird that my dragonborn Grr could use his breath weapon on two ogres that look almost identical and one dies and the other is barely touched.

 

[AnotherGuy]

There is no mystery to this: they spell out their intention in the 4e DMG.

Thank you will check it out.

We are discussing 4e minions, so that is the argument I am making.

Then this part of our conversation is over - but do remember you responded to me. I have been pretty transparent in this thread in how I would mechanically handle minions in 5e.

My appreciation of the 4e minion concept or anything else from any edition doesn't mean I need to use it verbatim, I may tweak it, but the concept is what I value.
For instance, I may change a 3x/5e Feat, this doesn't mean I appreciate the concept of the Feat less - same way with the 4e's minion idea, the SC, residuum, rituals etc

That seems like saying that because there are AoEs like fireball that could potentially incinerate a large group of humanoids, it doesn't matter that the game design goes further and creates new classes of humanoids statted specfically for mass annihilation.

So, the game continuously designing items, classes and spells that do mass annihilation on all life, not just humanoids, doesn't affect you only when the mechanics behind fictional humanoids make them ripe for slaughter does it raise the ethical concern.

Do keep in mind a lot of us have played games (Arcade/PC) where 1-shot kills are the norm.

To me that's an ugly thing to argue.

Why?

While I believe moral perspectives can be exported from fictional worlds back to our own, I neither think it guaranteed nor jump the gun in imputing such perspectives going in. I do not take worries grounded in morality to be absurd; even if they cannot be easily resolved.

I'd argue it is the context around those worries grounded in morality which makes them absurd.

Compunction must also take into account that because play is separated from the real we can entertain designs that express moral perspectives we do not share, and that the designers do not intend us to share.

And yet are allowed to roleplay less than honourable/good characters...

So I can appreciate your viewpoint even while disagreeing with it.

Apologies I do not share that sentiment as I find your viewpoint illogical..

One motive for my disagreement looks beyond TTRPG: I don't see the mechanic as an isolated perspective: the cinematic violences that it conciously models are as problematic as they are pervasive.

Some of us just play D&D.

 

[AlViking]

More often than many DMs (including me!) would like to think, it's fairly obvious when something's being made up on the spot.

Meanwhile I've made up almost an entire sessions because the players went a different direction than anticipated. One of them commented towards the end of the session when they didn't think I was listening that they didn't know how i had anticipated what they would do.

Other times, because I run a very open player driven game, I just let people know that I need to figure out what's going to happen. They know I plan out locations, factions, individuals but not plots so they're okay with it.

 

[clearstream]

And if an Ogre having 55 hit points means your 20th-level Fighter might have to hit it twice rather than once to kill it, so what?

Saying that the minions mechanic is essentially unnecessary doesn't seem like a particularly robust defense of it.