Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6299427" data-attributes="member: 6775031">Encounter guidelines are inherently contrived, whether you're facing at-level minions or lower-level individuals. The sim approach is that it is what it is, regardless of what the PCs are. There are six ogres in this warband, because that's how their social structure works. Whether you're level 1 or level 20, that has zero impact on how many ogres you're going to find together, or how many hit points each one has. Granted, if you're level 1 then your response is probably going to be running away, and if you're level 20 you're more likely to ignore them or toss out a pity Fireball, but the whole point of a sim is to see what happens.Disagree. If you happen to live in a world where Raise Dead is common, then that's no better or worse than a world with functional electricity, or mutant super-powers. It's just part of the setting. A contrivance would be if only PCs were able to be raised, or if enemies were dead at 0 while PCs got to struggle through death saves or negative hit points. Contrivances are in the execution, rather than the premise.Right. Games aren't novels, though, and shouldn't have to suffer such contrivances. When you read a fantasy novel, you pretty much know that everything is going to work out, but you stick around for the characters and their interactions and to see how it all happens. Games do not have such foregone conclusions, though; if you knew that everything was going to work out, then there would be no point in playing.In a role-playing game, I want to actually play the character, which means I can't be a pawn of destiny like any protagonist in a fantasy novel. They win because they have the author on their side, but if I had the author on my side, then I wouldn't be doing anything. I might as well be reading a book, at that point.</blockquote>

Verification