Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7197499" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>One, please stop with the ridiculous strawmen. Of course I know orcs aren't real. Of course I know you can define orcs any way you want. Of course I know the game has flexibility. Nothing I've said in any post has argued those points, and I'm pretty sure you're aware of that and are going for the ridiculous for the points.</p><p></p><p>That said, you're still missing the fundamental thrust of my argument -- it isn't that you cannot define orcs however you want, this is given, its that in order to present 18 easy orc encounters and then 3 deadly orc encounters you defined the orcs differently. And I'm not talking about CR considerations, I'm talking about what makes the orcs orcs. In the former, they're tough, arrogant, proud warriors that seek individual glory for their tribe so that you can provide 18 encounters with singles or doubles. In the latter they're individually weak and maraude in large groups because of that. Setting aside the mechanical bits of toughness and weakness, easily covered in monster adjustments on the mechanical side, you've set different standards for what it means to be an orc. The orcs from the easy encounter are different story-wise from the orcs in the deadly encounters. That change in story is part and parcel of worldbuilding -- worldbuilding doesn't answer the mechanics issues but instead addresses those story issues. And it doesn't matter if these orcs are from different tribes that the party will meet at different times or even if they're in different campaigns because you've changed the what it means to be an orc because you needed to meet the encounter restrictions.</p><p></p><p>And it stays the same if you drop the mechanical difference altogether and just use the MM orcs. If you're saying that tribe Easy has too much territory and that's why they're so spread out and come in small, easy encounter packets much more often, then that will differ from why tribe Deadly comes in more numerous groups -- the facts surrounding the tribes, the pressures on the tribes, the area they control. the customs, the tactics (large group vs small) all change just because you're setting a fixed encounter pacing. You are adapting parts of your world to make the encounters make sense, and regardless of whether you bake this in at the beginning so it's always this way or you have things dynamically change to fit the PCs story arcs, you are doing worldbuilding to create reasons for the encounters to exist.</p><p></p><p>That's what I mean by encounter building not being extricable from world building -- by presenting encounters you are presenting the world, and if you fix encounters to some arbitrary standard you end up having to create a world where those encounters make sense, just as you did reflexively by explaining why the orcs come in small lots or big lots.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7197499, member: 16814"] One, please stop with the ridiculous strawmen. Of course I know orcs aren't real. Of course I know you can define orcs any way you want. Of course I know the game has flexibility. Nothing I've said in any post has argued those points, and I'm pretty sure you're aware of that and are going for the ridiculous for the points. That said, you're still missing the fundamental thrust of my argument -- it isn't that you cannot define orcs however you want, this is given, its that in order to present 18 easy orc encounters and then 3 deadly orc encounters you defined the orcs differently. And I'm not talking about CR considerations, I'm talking about what makes the orcs orcs. In the former, they're tough, arrogant, proud warriors that seek individual glory for their tribe so that you can provide 18 encounters with singles or doubles. In the latter they're individually weak and maraude in large groups because of that. Setting aside the mechanical bits of toughness and weakness, easily covered in monster adjustments on the mechanical side, you've set different standards for what it means to be an orc. The orcs from the easy encounter are different story-wise from the orcs in the deadly encounters. That change in story is part and parcel of worldbuilding -- worldbuilding doesn't answer the mechanics issues but instead addresses those story issues. And it doesn't matter if these orcs are from different tribes that the party will meet at different times or even if they're in different campaigns because you've changed the what it means to be an orc because you needed to meet the encounter restrictions. And it stays the same if you drop the mechanical difference altogether and just use the MM orcs. If you're saying that tribe Easy has too much territory and that's why they're so spread out and come in small, easy encounter packets much more often, then that will differ from why tribe Deadly comes in more numerous groups -- the facts surrounding the tribes, the pressures on the tribes, the area they control. the customs, the tactics (large group vs small) all change just because you're setting a fixed encounter pacing. You are adapting parts of your world to make the encounters make sense, and regardless of whether you bake this in at the beginning so it's always this way or you have things dynamically change to fit the PCs story arcs, you are doing worldbuilding to create reasons for the encounters to exist. That's what I mean by encounter building not being extricable from world building -- by presenting encounters you are presenting the world, and if you fix encounters to some arbitrary standard you end up having to create a world where those encounters make sense, just as you did reflexively by explaining why the orcs come in small lots or big lots. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room
Top