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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6300832" data-attributes="member: 87792">OK.&nbsp; First things first, a lot of people have a bad case of &quot;Stop motion&nbsp; animation syndrome&quot; on this thread.&nbsp; D&amp;D combat runs under a weird&nbsp; form of time based stop motion animation in which for simplicity&nbsp; everyone takes their actions in turn even though it is actually a&nbsp; confusing melee going on, with everyone trying to stay alive and kill&nbsp; their enemies at the same time.&nbsp; A lot of this discussion is treating&nbsp; the way the rules work as if people genuinely took it in turns,&nbsp; then froze, unable to act until their next turn.&nbsp; This sort of conceit&nbsp; is fun in Erfworld and is the sort of thing Order of the Stick plays&nbsp; with - but it certainly isn't how my game works.&nbsp; Likewise with a whole&nbsp; lot of claims to objectivity.&nbsp; And you don't just swing your sword once&nbsp; in six seconds...As for the same monster having different stat blocks based on the person that is looking at it, <a href="http://themetapicture.com/famous-photos-from-a-different-angle/" target="_blank">this showed up on my facebook feed this morning</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp; The same place seen and photographed from two very different angles.&nbsp;&nbsp; And the representation is like that.&nbsp; As you level your angle on&nbsp; monsters changes.&nbsp; The place being represented by the photo is the same -&nbsp; but from different sides it looks very different.&nbsp; Likewise monster&nbsp; stat blocks.&nbsp; In all versions of the Hill Giant stat block (if you chose&nbsp; to play it that way) the hill giant is a 14' tall (or whatever)&nbsp; humanoid who can smash ordinary human beings into a paste and lift an&nbsp; incredible amount.&nbsp; But how it is behaving is different.&nbsp; For facing the&nbsp; solo version it might just be the scariest monster you've ever seen.&nbsp;&nbsp; But when you've levelled up enough to spit in Lolth's eye before casting&nbsp; her back down into the abyss, it's just another giant.&nbsp; Nothing to get&nbsp; excited about - not even a warmup match.And the XP for the giant&nbsp; remains (approxiately) the same, whatever level it's presented as.&nbsp;&nbsp; Whichever version used has about the same chance, but &quot;The scariest&nbsp; monster our PCs who've only been to the nearest town have ever seen&quot; is a&nbsp; whole lot more bookkeeping for the DM than &quot;Just another giant I could&nbsp; take blindfolded&quot;.I&nbsp; disagree entirely.&nbsp; To be accurate one of the strong aspects of modern&nbsp; game design is, as mentioned, aligning gamist impulses with&nbsp; storytelling.&nbsp; The better you play the game the more intense the story&nbsp; will be as well as the stronger your character will be.&nbsp; (And your&nbsp; character will have more dumped on them because of this).This.&nbsp; If we ignore Erfworld, Flatland, and Order of the&nbsp; Stick for a while, almost no RPGs work exactly like their rules - and&nbsp; almost all of them miss out hugely important things.&nbsp; But there are two&nbsp; sorts of simulation - process sim and outcome sim.A Process Sim&nbsp; is a simulation that tries to take all the nitty gritty details of what&nbsp; you are doing and give mechanical weight to each of them.&nbsp; If you miss a&nbsp; factor it doesn't happen.&nbsp; 3.X goes this way.&nbsp; GURPS and Rolemaster both do it better.An&nbsp; Outcome Sim says that process sims are impossible to get right - and&nbsp; small factors have big effects.&nbsp; You're going to have to fudge.&nbsp; If&nbsp; you're doing a sim right then the outcomes should match up to the&nbsp; expected outcomes, and you can fill in the fudge factors yourself.&nbsp; This&nbsp; is vastly my preferred model as process sims are IMO charging off after&nbsp; something that is (a) impossible and (b) would be better done on&nbsp; computer anyway with that many factors.&nbsp; And 4e is a pretty good outcome&nbsp; sim.This&nbsp; is part of why I consider GNS theory poor.&nbsp; I've seldom found a pure&nbsp; agenda helps anyone - GNS would call an impure one incoherent.Here's&nbsp; the Kobayashi Maru.&nbsp; And no, you can't hack it.&nbsp; What and how much do&nbsp; you save?&nbsp; And how then do you come back and prevent it happening&nbsp; again.&nbsp; (Gamism and Narrativism together).Unless you are playing a limited term freeform (Grey Ranks, Montsegur 1244, arguably Fiasco)The&nbsp; word &quot;always&quot; is untrue.&nbsp; D&amp;D in its earliest days did.&nbsp; Slightly&nbsp; gritty fantasy adventure about rascals making money.&nbsp; The problem was&nbsp; that Dragonlance tried to do something else.&nbsp; Something&nbsp; incompatable - and from that point on D&amp;D was trying to ride two&nbsp; horses at the same time.&nbsp; Neither 2e nor 3.0 knew what they were&nbsp; simulating and that's why they are both poor sims.4E is&nbsp; simulating what's promised by Dragonlance and on the cover of the red&nbsp; box.&nbsp; And does so well.&nbsp; It won't simulate the sort of environment the&nbsp; Rules Cyclopaedia does - but RC D&amp;D still exists.&nbsp; Indeed.&nbsp; The difference between 3e Challenge Ratings and 4e Encounter Levels is simply that Encounter Levels work.&nbsp; CR is doomed because the ability of a NPC wizard to dump everything into one encounter simply breaks the system.[Predictable comic about overusing levels cut]Because level is a good estimate of who it will be an interesting&nbsp; challenge without too much book keeping for.&nbsp; Level is one of the two&nbsp; dimensions being used - but still an important one.&nbsp; XP is the other.A level 8 solo is worth the same xp as a level 25 minion.&nbsp; Imagine&nbsp; it as the old school random dungeons generator - they were levelled&nbsp; from 1-9 IIRC.&nbsp; But there wasn't always one single monster per result.&nbsp;&nbsp; On Level 9 of the Dungeon you might roll up 1 Ancient Red Dragon or 16&nbsp; Ogres lead by an Ogre Mage (or whatever - I don't know the tables). To&nbsp; put it into almost 4e parlance, level 9 represents the dungeon level.&nbsp;&nbsp; The 1 Ancient Red Dragon would be a solo, and the 16 Ogres would be&nbsp; minions with the Ogre Mage being a Standard.Does that make it&nbsp; any easier?&nbsp; Imagining that in 4e level represents the dungeon level.&nbsp;&nbsp; The ogres are still ogres.&nbsp; But an Uruk-hai seen by Sam on his own is&nbsp; terrifying; one seen by Aragorn is Tuesday.Given that Hit Points&nbsp; aren't objective there is no way that the giant can be truly&nbsp; objective.&nbsp; It has to be subjective.&nbsp; Objective + Subjective =&nbsp; Subjective.QFTOn the other hand they know whether the giant is terrifying,&nbsp; requiring a change of underwear (Solo) or something their expert archer&nbsp; should be able to take in the eye in one shot and so comparatively slow&nbsp; the expert swordsman can trivially sidestep the club and take in the&nbsp; femoral artery without breaking a sweat (Minion).&nbsp; They know who should be more scared of whom.And hit points have been very explicitely not meat and an approximation of a dozen or more things.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 6300832, member: 87792"] OK. First things first, a lot of people have a bad case of "Stop motion animation syndrome" on this thread. D&D combat runs under a weird form of time based stop motion animation in which for simplicity everyone takes their actions in turn even though it is actually a confusing melee going on, with everyone trying to stay alive and kill their enemies at the same time. A lot of this discussion is treating the way the rules work as if people [I]genuinely[/I] took it in turns, then froze, unable to act until their next turn. This sort of conceit is fun in Erfworld and is the sort of thing Order of the Stick plays with - but it certainly isn't how my game works. Likewise with a whole lot of claims to objectivity. And you don't just swing your sword once in six seconds... As for the same monster having different stat blocks based on the person that is looking at it, [URL="http://themetapicture.com/famous-photos-from-a-different-angle/"]this showed up on my facebook feed this morning[/URL]. The same place seen and photographed from two very different angles. And the representation is like that. As you level your angle on monsters changes. The place being represented by the photo is the same - but from different sides it looks very different. Likewise monster stat blocks. In all versions of the Hill Giant stat block (if you chose to play it that way) the hill giant is a 14' tall (or whatever) humanoid who can smash ordinary human beings into a paste and lift an incredible amount. But how it is behaving is different. For facing the solo version it might just be the scariest monster you've ever seen. But when you've levelled up enough to spit in Lolth's eye before casting her back down into the abyss, it's just another giant. Nothing to get excited about - not even a warmup match. And the XP for the giant remains (approxiately) the same, whatever level it's presented as. Whichever version used has about the same chance, but "The scariest monster our PCs who've only been to the nearest town have ever seen" is a whole lot more bookkeeping for the DM than "Just another giant I could take blindfolded". I disagree entirely. To be accurate one of the strong aspects of modern game design is, as mentioned, aligning gamist impulses with storytelling. The better you play the game the more intense the story will be as well as the stronger your character will be. (And your character will have more dumped on them because of this). This. If we ignore Erfworld, Flatland, and Order of the Stick for a while, almost no RPGs work exactly like their rules - and almost all of them miss out hugely important things. But there are two sorts of simulation - process sim and outcome sim. A Process Sim is a simulation that tries to take all the nitty gritty details of what you are doing and give mechanical weight to each of them. If you miss a factor it doesn't happen. 3.X goes this way. GURPS and Rolemaster both do it better. An Outcome Sim says that process sims are impossible to get right - and small factors have big effects. You're going to have to fudge. If you're doing a sim right then the outcomes should match up to the expected outcomes, and you can fill in the fudge factors yourself. This is vastly my preferred model as process sims are IMO charging off after something that is (a) impossible and (b) would be better done on computer anyway with that many factors. And 4e is a pretty good outcome sim. This is part of why I consider GNS theory poor. I've seldom found a pure agenda helps anyone - GNS would call an impure one incoherent. Here's the Kobayashi Maru. And no, you can't hack it. What and how much do you save? And how then do you come back and prevent it happening again. (Gamism and Narrativism together). Unless you are playing a limited term freeform (Grey Ranks, Montsegur 1244, arguably Fiasco) The word "always" is untrue. D&D in its earliest days did. Slightly gritty fantasy adventure about rascals making money. The problem was that Dragonlance [I]tried to do something else[/I]. Something incompatable - and from that point on D&D was trying to ride two horses at the same time. Neither 2e nor 3.0 knew what they were simulating and that's why they are both poor sims. 4E is simulating what's promised by Dragonlance and on the cover of the red box. And does so well. It won't simulate the sort of environment the Rules Cyclopaedia does - but RC D&D still exists. Indeed. The difference between 3e Challenge Ratings and 4e Encounter Levels is simply that Encounter Levels [I]work[/I]. CR is doomed because the ability of a NPC wizard to dump everything into one encounter simply breaks the system. [Predictable comic about overusing levels cut] Because level is a good estimate of who it will be an interesting challenge without too much book keeping for. Level is one of the two dimensions being used - but still an important one. XP is the other. A level 8 [I]solo[/I] is worth the same xp as a level 25 [I]minion[/I]. Imagine it as the old school random dungeons generator - they were levelled from 1-9 IIRC. But there wasn't always one single monster per result. On Level 9 of the Dungeon you might roll up 1 Ancient Red Dragon or 16 Ogres lead by an Ogre Mage (or whatever - I don't know the tables). To put it into almost 4e parlance, level 9 represents the dungeon level. The 1 Ancient Red Dragon would be a solo, and the 16 Ogres would be minions with the Ogre Mage being a Standard. Does that make it any easier? Imagining that in 4e level represents the dungeon level. The ogres are still ogres. But an Uruk-hai seen by Sam on his own is terrifying; one seen by Aragorn is Tuesday. Given that [I]Hit Points[/I] aren't objective there is no way that the giant can be truly objective. It has to be subjective. Objective + Subjective = Subjective. QFT On the other hand they know whether the giant is terrifying, requiring a change of underwear (Solo) or something their expert archer should be able to take in the eye in one shot and so comparatively slow the expert swordsman can trivially sidestep the club and take in the femoral artery without breaking a sweat (Minion). They know who should be more scared of whom. And hit points have been very explicitely not meat and an approximation of a dozen or more things. [/QUOTE]

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