D&D 5E Simulation vs Game - Where should D&D 5e aim?

[LostSoul]

Still, the important thing was that the mechanical differences represented actual, substantive differences between individuals. Orcs had shamans and witch-doctors instead of clerics and mages, and the difference in their stats and abilities was because they were different things (rather than reflecting their narrative importance).

I agree, though I don't think that NPCs and PCs need to use the same method of determining their stats. I think this gives the game the most flexibility - you can still run the game in a "4E scene-framing" style that way, as well as in a Gygaxian or a 3E "rules are physics" style.

 

[Mallus]

Still, the important thing was that the mechanical differences represented actual, substantive differences between individuals. Orcs had shamans and witch-doctors instead of clerics and mages, and the difference in their stats and abilities was because they were different things (rather than reflecting their narrative importance).

That's not exactly right.

For example, in AD&D, you can have 3 human beings; a hireling, a henchmen, and a PC. For fun, let's give them identical stats. The PC and the henchmen have class levels, the hireling doesn't.

They all go on an adventure and survive. The PC gets a full share of XP and can increase in level.

The henchmen gets less than a full share of XP, but still can increase in level. PCs can only have a limited number of henchman, as determined by their CHA.

The hireling doesn't get any XP, and can't increase in level. PCs can have as many hirelings as they can pay for, but they don't improve.

The DM & player at some point, might change the hireling into a henchman. Note this has nothing to do with any inherent quality the henchman has. This change is predicated on a) the player desiring it and b) the character having enough henchman slots free.

So the substantive difference between these three don't reflect anything in the game world. The difference reflect their respective roles in the 'story', i.e. star, sidekick, extra/redshirt.

(I know you said your experience was with AD&D 2e, but I'm pretty sure the hireling/henchman difference is the same)

 

[Lanefan]

Upthread, in post 46, I mentioned two sorts of RPGers who are interested in story as an outcome of play (and perhaps there are others?): "Forge-y narrativists and old-fashioned 90s-style railroaders".

The idea that "we're supposed to win" and "we're going to win" belongs to 90s-style railroaders. That's a mode of play that I personally dislike greatly. (And I have a fairly expansive conception of what counts as 90s-style railroading - for me it covers adventure path play.)

This style of play, when not taken to extremes, certainly has a place now and then in a long campaign...believe me. This, I'm not as willing to completely dismiss it as you might be.

That said, "we're supposed to / going to win" isn't often heard 'round here, and for good reason.

"Forge-y narrativism" is closer to where I'm at. For me, the key aspect of contrivance is not that the PCs will win, but that wins or losses will occur at points that matter. A slogan I have used in the past is "no failure off-screen". To use one of the LotR examples again, in the sort of play the Battle of the Pelenor fields is absolutely not going to be lost because of a random roll on a weather chart to see which direction the wind is blowing. But it might well be lost because the PC who confronts the Witch King fails to defeat him.

OK, what about off-screen success; where the Pellenor Fields is won because of a random weather roll that puts the wind in the right direction and keeps the clouds away so they don't block the sun in the enemies' eyes?

Besides, if something like the wind direction is enough to make or break a battle scene that big it's on far too fine an edge. A random "off-screen" element shouldn't be enough to make or break the scene, but it should have the ability to make a difference - for good or bad - both to the difficulty for the PCs and the approach taken by all.

The key to this sort of play is tight scene-framing. I think causal-oriented simulationism is the enemy of tight scene-framing, because the causes leak out from one scene to another in ways that have no bearing upon dramatic significance. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s example of bean-counting in GURPS (or Rolemaster; or certain approaches to AD&D, for that matter) is one common example of this: consequences of no dramatic significance start to be more important in shaping the transition from event to event than dramatic considerations about what matters in a thematic/dramatic sense.

Not everything has to be dramatic; and if it is then the once-dramatic will too soon become mundane.

Sometimes the little not-very-dramatic events and consequences can end up changing the course of a campaign; something as simple, for example, as the party deciding not to explore a particular passage down which lies the trigger for a 3-adventure arc. Or a bean-counting spellcaster who realizes she hasn't got quite enough beans to afford a particular spell (but would have if the party had just been a bit more mercenary last time in the field), where unknown to the player said spell could make a huge difference to how the next few adventures play out. And so on.

Lan-"with minor in-game causes from 2009 still leaking into campaign events today"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

That's not exactly right.

For example, in AD&D, you can have 3 human beings; a hireling, a henchmen, and a PC. For fun, let's give them identical stats. The PC and the henchmen have class levels, the hireling doesn't.

They all go on an adventure and survive.

OK, but how much did each contribute to their collective survival? If all the hireling did was stand outside with the horses then of course he gets no x.p. But if he was inside with the party risking his life along with them, then of course he should be able to gain experience.

The PC gets a full share of XP and can increase in level.

The henchmen gets less than a full share of XP, but still can increase in level. PCs can only have a limited number of henchman, as determined by their CHA.

The hireling doesn't get any XP, and can't increase in level. PCs can have as many hirelings as they can pay for, but they don't improve.

This is a 1e rule I always thought was utter tripe, that there's any difference between adventuring hirelings and adventuring henches. For me, a hireling is someone who does work for you in a (nominally) safe environment, such as back in town. As soon as you take these hirelings into the field and expose them to danger they should be able to gain x.p. as if they were henches, whether they want to or not, provided they materially contribute to defeating and-or bypassing said danger. (in 30+ years of DMing I have never had a character get anywhere near its Cha.-based limit on henches-at-a-time, so that's not an issue; I have had a character hire a hench where said character's class did not allow such, he was converted on the fly to a hench of the party as a whole once we caught the error)

So the substantive difference between these three don't reflect anything in the game world. The difference reflect their respective roles in the 'story', i.e. star, sidekick, extra/redshirt.

So how would you handle a situation where someone's hench became so valuable to the party they wanted to promote it to a full member? (I've seen this happen numerous times) What if a simple hireling somehow ends up saving the party - does it get x.p.? It certainly should...

Lanefan

 

[howandwhy99]

The hireling doesn't get any XP, and can't increase in level. PCs can have as many hirelings as they can pay for, but they don't improve.

The DM & player at some point, might change the hireling into a henchman. Note this has nothing to do with any inherent quality the henchman has. This change is predicated on a) the player desiring it and b) the character having enough henchman slots free.

I have minor disagreement with this part only. Henchmen are in contracts with the PCs too (or with other NPCs, or like the PCs begin with mentors), but even Hirelings have class levels. They simply don't have PC-class levels. They have basic or expert NPC-class levels. And they gain XP for their class by performing relevant actions and learning from the experience. Just like Henchmen and Players/Characters.

So while a Linkboy or a Scribe might not be sharing XP with the players, XP gained from combat with the PCs leading a couple hundred Men-at-Arms is shared.

Also, I would say that technically everything in the game is statted up, including every character NPC or PC. So whether anyone not a PC is important or not is up to the players' judgement of the gamed situation.

But all of the above is my interpretation. There are other ways to go with this.

EDIT: Also, I think Players would need to convince an NPC to become their Henchmen. That gives players a lot of potential variety for who they get, but still allow for balancing as to how difficult it would be to attract a powerful ally. Even then, a high level NPC who is a good carpenter might not want to give up his profession to become a ...I don't know. Wizard? Fighter? Given the study time to reach level 1 that's more of a hindrance usually than the background (call it Secondary Skill level) is worth.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So the substantive difference between these three don't reflect anything in the game world. The difference reflect their respective roles in the 'story', i.e. star, sidekick, extra/redshirt.

Um, I guess that's one way of looking at it.

That's really not how I see it, though. It's not that the rules of the game are the laws of nature, but rather that they reflect the laws of nature. In order to do so in a way that results in a playable game, they have to make some assumptions in order to do so.

In this case, the experience rewards are supposed to reflect the actual accomplishments of each person. The hero gets full, because she's the one coming up with the ideas and actually engaging the demon in direct combat and whatnot; the hench-person gets partial experience, for taking some of the risks and contributing where possible; the hireling gets nothing for holding the torch and carrying swag.

You could take those same people, rotate their jobs, and experience rewards would shift as appropriate; if your hero wants to hold the torch while you let the hireling make all of the decisions and fight the demon, then the experience rewards would be reversed.

 

[Balesir]

Still, the important thing was that the mechanical differences represented actual, substantive differences between individuals. Orcs had shamans and witch-doctors instead of clerics and mages, and the difference in their stats and abilities was because they were different things (rather than reflecting their narrative importance).

What gives you to be sure that beings with different narrative importance must necessarily NOT be substantively different? Why should we not conceive of a world where that is true?

As an aside, I remember the first time that I ever realised that it was possible to have a game where "monsters" were statted just as PCs were, with attributes (STR, DEX, etc. - which they never had in AD&D) and skills. It was when I read a White Dwarf article detailing an adventure for RuneQuest; the "monsters" had skills and personalities and everything. It came as a complete revelation to a school kid initiated only in D&D (this would have been around 1978, I guess), because that was not how monsters worked in our D&D games at all. For a while I became besotted with the idea that this was the "only right and true"(TM) method to do things - "Monsters are People, Too!", we would cry - but I have since realised that there are just two ways of doing things that are just different. Both methods are good for different "modes" of play, there is absolutely nothing wrong with either. It is a division much like the classed/classless one, actually; both structures have their uses and are fine methods in their own right - they are simply different. Of course, you can't combine both methods into the same game very well, which seems (inexplicably, to my mind) to give some folks "issues". The answer is simple, though - play several different RPGs!!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What gives you to be sure that beings with different narrative importance must necessarily NOT be substantively different? Why should we not conceive of a world where that is true?

I guess you could do that, if you really wanted to. I had just never seen it quite so enforced​ as it was in 4E. In earlier editions, you could go either way.

 

[Hussar]

It wasn't enforced in 4e, it was just assumed. You certainly could stat up anything with PC levels if you wanted to. There was absolutely nothing to prevent this. The only thing is, why bother? There was no real reason to do so, and many very good reasons - time prepping an adventure probably being the big one - not to.

Why bother giving an orc four levels in barbarian? Just give him basic X level stats, a couple of power effects and be done with it. Far easier to prep and a heck of a lot less work for the DM. The vast majority of stuff that is necessary for a PC is really not all that needed for an NPC. Yes, it might come up. That's true. But, for the small number of times that it does come up, having something like a general rule of thumb is a faster and easier way of doing it.

The difference is, 4e never, ever pretended to be something that it wasn't. You certainly don't need to create monsters in 3e like PC's either. In fact, the vast majority of monsters, outside of classed individuals, AREN'T designed with PC rules. There's a bajilliion exceptions and whatnot. Why does a Medusa have a gaze attack? That's not something a PC can ever have. How do you weight the value of that attack? Who cares? You set the DC for a 7th (ish) level opponent and go from there.

Put it another way, how is the DC 15 Fort save for a Medusa's gaze attack derived? Where does that number come from?

 

[Ahnehnois]

It wasn't enforced in 4e, it was just assumed. You certainly could stat up anything with PC levels if you wanted to. There was absolutely nothing to prevent this.

There isn't really anything to facilitate it either. If the NPC doesn't define himself according to the four combat roles, there's no class for him. Part of what 3e in particular did is design classes meant to fill broader roles in the world. Both the flavor text and the mechanics themselves make clear that the PC classes were built with nonadventuring NPC applications as a consideration, and then you have the NPC classes.

If I want to stat up some hedge wizard magic shop owner as a significant character, I've got the wizard class and the adept class as options that were clearly intended for that. If I want the guy at the temple selling spells, then it's cleric or adept. Captain of the Guard? Fighter; warrior maybe in a small town. Cat burglar? Rogue. Nobleman? Aristocrat. In 4e, I've got nothing appropriate for any of those. Not that 3e is perfect, but it's got something.

Why bother giving an orc four levels in barbarian?
...
But, for the small number of times that it does come up, having something like a general rule of thumb is a faster and easier way of doing it.

Depends on what kind of barbarian we're talking about. If we're talking about a PF barbarian with all those pesky rage powers, yes there could stand to be an easier way of doing it. But one of the benchmarks of a well designed class is that it can be used efficiently for this purpose.

That's one of the reasons the PF fighter is such a good piece of design. How long does that take to apply? Not much longer than just making up some numbers and contriving them enough to serve a purpose.

Why does a Medusa have a gaze attack? That's not something a PC can ever have.

Sure it is. It's not something a human could have (except temporarily through occasional spells), but it's entirely possible for a PC to have one. Savage Species FTW!

How do you weight the value of that attack?

Highly.

Who cares?

Players. Either players who want to play a monstrous character, or players who want a level playing field. And DMs who like the system as a whole to be coherent and make sense.

Put it another way, how is the DC 15 Fort save for a Medusa's gaze attack derived? Where does that number come from?

The same place that any DC in 3e comes from: HD/Level and ability modifier. The HD is the measure of how good you are at being whatever you are, and the ability mod is a measure of how naturally talented you are at doing what you're doing. That's pretty much how most D&D math works.