So what's gold gonna be for?

[Thunderfoot]

This is the DM's fault for not pausing after the first adventure and stating, "Six months later ..."

Well, that's the problem...it's been a single stream of events, there hasn't been time to break like that yet, hence the comment. If the game is more than just a combat go to a dungeon clear it kind of thing, then there are scenarios, like the one I'm involved in, where it doesn't mesh.

Of course without the added, I can't level without training hook, the group doesn't pull back and keeps pushing forward. Similar to 'hunting slimes' IMO.

 

[Kraydak]

Horrible, horrible idea. Keep your MMORPG away from my D&D.

Empire building, running castles and kingdoms, raising and battling armies, playing with the power-brokers of the setting, defending nations, carving nations, becoming the heroes from the setting's storybooks, becoming a legend, etc. is what High Level gaming IMO is all about. It is ridiculous that heroes of 10th+ level have as their only goal to enter the next big, dumb dungeon. Then at 20th level they can find a 20th level dungeon to go into. Blech.

I never could understand why, if people don't want to have characters that actually impact the setting, why bother with these silly super-dungeons when video games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion does the who dungeoneering thing so much better than a tabletop game ever could. I am not claiming that this game is real role-playing in the sense of being in character and getting into your role. However it is role-playing as in "you are playing a role so its role playing :\ " and as much a role-playing experience as the giant endless dungeon modules that came out for 3.5

Yeah I know D&D is all about killing things and taking their stuff....a phrase that jumped the shark long ago. MMORPGs and even single player option games like Oblivion are more gratifying IMO in that mode of play than D&D can ever be. Better visuals, more immersion, and more viceral excitement is what video games of this type give. It is perfect for players who only want the kill and rob mode of play. Who really cares about character development in the world of endless dungeons? There is no reason to care. D&D can never compete with computer and console RPGs in the modern era on their level....never.

If D&D isn't run as a game that can offer a far, far richer role-playing experience than the MMORPGs D&D will die for certain. It has to be advertised as something more than a tabletop videogame.

Ultimately D&D is a social, storytelling, adventure game that allows, within the bounds of the millieu used, nearly limitless choices and allows a deep sense of identification with one's chosen character, a character who can actually have impact on a setting and environment in a campaign that can last for 5, 10, 15, 20+ years. It is a game that will allow you to model your favorite fantasy fiction and create grand interactive stories that you can talk about with friends for years.

NO video game can ever do this. D&D has its strengths and MMORPGs have their. If either tries to pretend it can do what it does as well as the other then....well its D&D that is going to lose. There are already people that really believe the WoW and Baldur's Gate are real RPG experiences when all that seperates them from Legacy of Kain, Half-Life 2, Halo, etc. is that there is more resource management and more scripted dialogue. Half Life 2 and the Halo series have as good a story as anything I have ever seen in CRPGs. In all instances you are trapped in a world that have every little options, no character immersion, allows nothing to happen that isn't somehow pre-scripter and allows you to rebook from save or spawn points after something goes wrong. Even D&D isn't this forgiving, even with True Resurrection. At least you aren't starting you character over from before the fight with the BBEG after you get raised.

MMORPGs serve the broadest common denominator the same way WWE wrestling serves a broader common broader denominator of potential fans than PBS's Nova or a Ken Burns documentary or a serious drama like Mystic River for example. WWE is silly, artificial, simplistic and ultimately adolescent. Nothing that raises the bar above sex and violence can ever compete societally with the WWE on its level because in WWE wrestling you have all the ingrediants necessary to activate the most primal purient interests of millions and millions of people.

I know I may draw some ire with this but, hack and slash gaming is to immersive role-playing what US Weekly is to the New Yorker. CRPGs and MMORPGs do the whole kill and rob thing better than D&D. D&D does social interaction, storytelling, impact and consequences, free choice, activating the imagination, character depth, potentially endless play in one setting let along the many settings currently on the market and character player identification better than CRPGs and MMORPGs ever can.

D&D has to play to what makes it different from MMORPGS and CARPGs while at the same time allowing the kill and rob playstyle some enjoy but not marketing that style as its greatest strength when it isn't.

Sundragon

I have played DnD with bad DMs, mediocre DMs and a few superb DMs. None of them, not even the best, could run an Empire building game at a level that would interest me. The DMing load would simply be too great and DM whim would become utterly dominant. In a dungeoncrawl there will be 2-3 different factions, with specific relations and intrigues. In an Empire campaign, there will be 10s of different factions, and 100s to 1000s of faction-faction relationships. All respect to DMs, but running that well is beyond any human. Which results in either a "mother-may-I" campaign or a campaign with curiously passive NPCs waiting to get rolled when the PCs get around to it.

Empire games are about political relations, and the problem of vast numbers of factions is best solved by having vast numbers of players. The advantage of tabletop RPGs over CRPGs/MMORPGs lies in tactical flexibility, rather than political complexity.

With current technology, the advantages and disadvantages are:
CRPGs: no need for a group, high dev time/play time ratio at the cost of tactical flexibility due to programming limitations
Table-top: high tactical flexibility at the cost of low dev time/play time ratios and low complexity due to human limitations of the DM
MMORPG: as per CRPG, with added possibility of high tactical/political complexity with PvP at the added cost of policing anti-social behavior (griefing)

 

[Kraydak]

This is akin to being promoted from Private to Colonel in the same time. You don't progress that fast in anything...it just isn't right and completely blows the 'feel' of the game. It isn't in the remotest sense of the word, believable. I realize this is a fantasy game, but one reason that the LotR was different than the rest of the pulp crap that was out there at the time. There was a sense of realism that held it together.

When it is missing from a game, it does a lot to sour the aspect of Epic and makes it look more Cartoonish.

The rate of promotion is genre appropriate (look at the obnoxiously overrepresented "farm boy saves the world" books).

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I know I may draw some ire with this but, hack and slash gaming is to immersive role-playing what US Weekly is to the New Yorker.

I know I may draw some ire with this, but immersive role-playing has as much to do with D&D Design as ice carving has to do with chainsaw design.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

I know I may draw some ire with this, but immersive role-playing has as much to do with D&D Design as ice carving has to do with chainsaw design.

Wulf's got it.

Doesn't speak to the value of immersive roleplaying, mind - which I choose not to here - but it's certainly true.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Well, that's the problem...it's been a single stream of events, there hasn't been time to break like that yet, hence the comment.

Well, that's the issue.

If the DM doesn't want the players to go from 1st to 20th in a month, he needs to plan adventures such that the players don't go from 1st to 20th in a month.

That means building in appropriate break points.

Advice on doing this should probably be in the DMG.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I have played DnD with bad DMs, mediocre DMs and a few superb DMs. None of them, not even the best, could run an Empire building game at a level that would interest me.

Come play in my game! Are you near NYC?

The DMing load would simply be too great and DM whim would become utterly dominant. In a dungeoncrawl there will be 2-3 different factions, with specific relations and intrigues. In an Empire campaign, there will be 10s of different factions, and 100s to 1000s of faction-faction relationships.

Keep in mind, however, that you don't need to shift the actual game engine over to Civ 4 just because nations and empires are involved. You'd still be running the game from the POV of the PCs, which means that only developments that affect the PCs should be relevant. It's just like running a campaign world with a cast of thousands and myriad factions; I don't keep track of what every single major power player in the Lords of Dust or the Red Wizards of Thay is doing, I just have their actions become relevant when they enter the PCs' sphere of interest. Hence the emphasis on verisimilitude rather than accurate simulation: Developments in the campaign need to feel logical, rather than be determined according to a gigantic external machinery.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

It only impacts the setting insofar as you continue to play in the setting afterwards, and the events that occurred have consequences. If the PCs fail, or a not-so-BBEG survives, then the level 1 to 20 dungeon campaign can have an impact. Otherwise, only what the characters build -- artifacts, nations, families, institutions, legends --impact the setting.

Wouldnt the same stipulation apply? I mean, if world saving antics, cabal busting and demigod slaying throughout Age of Worms doesnt impact the setting if you cease to play, then wouldnt fort building not impact it as well?

 

[ruleslawyer]

I know I may draw some ire with this, but immersive role-playing has as much to do with D&D Design as ice carving has to do with chainsaw design.

I agree with this entirely. Consequently, I think that the better-developed a set of tools for running dominions, large-scale battles, and social encounters in the rules (a separate book is fine), the more dimensions one can lend to a high-level campaign.

I really think this is one area in which BECMI D&D got it exactly right: Killing things and taking their stuff may be something you do at all levels of the game, but the large-scale underlying reasons for killing things et al, as well as additional goals and obstacles in the game, can and should change from low to high levels.

 

[Kraydak]

Come play in my game! Are you near NYC?

For an average american, yes. For practical purposes... no, Rochester doesn't really count unless you are willing to foot the bill for air travel (writing on a Mac, so no VTT for me )

Also, fair warning, if it isn't already painfully obvious from my posts, I am about as far are you can go along the simulationist axis while still being take any enjoyment from gaming at all...

Keep in mind, however, that you don't need to shift the actual game engine over to Civ 4 just because nations and empires are involved. You'd still be running the game from the POV of the PCs, which means that only developments that affect the PCs should be relevant. It's just like running a campaign world with a cast of thousands and myriad factions; I don't keep track of what every single major power player in the Lords of Dust or the Red Wizards of Thay is doing, I just have their actions become relevant when they enter the PCs' sphere of interest. Hence the emphasis on verisimilitude rather than accurate simulation: Developments in the campaign need to feel logical, rather than be determined according to a gigantic external machinery.

I feel that that works for the minimal political effects deriving from the power of HLCs in a butt-kicking campaign, but likely not for a deliberately political campgain... I'd like to be proven wrong, but it sounds unlikely :\