Something that 4e's designers overlooked? -aka is KM correct?

[Mark]

Welcome to the internet!

My Internet is not of that attitude. You must have the old model.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, ok, I surrender.

I misread what was being said.

I thought the idea was, "If you don't do what I want you to do, I'm going to punish you for it later", since the idea was that obstacles will only grow in power the longer you wait. Since that's not true, as both RC and Kingreaper have pointed out, then my point is not true.

I did admit this before Kingreaper's post above, but, I'll restate it here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But as they currently work, paragon paths and epic destinies don't relate to time at all.

Well, they do, just not explicitly, or uniformly.

4e, too keep with the example, has an XP reward for every encounter. About 10 encounters gives you a level. About 30 levels gives you all your character will experience. After 11 levels (about 110 encounters), you choose a paragon path that is realized after about another 100 more encounters.

Those encounters do consume time, both at the table, and in the lives of the characters.

Different tables might go at different rates of that "in the lives of the characters" thing. One group might make every "extended rest" a day in the game world, and they go, say, about 2 encounter per extended rest, meaning that it takes them about 50 in-game days to do 100 encounters. Another group might have a longer period rest at every level or so, maybe a week, or a month, or even a year, elongating the in-world time it takes to do the same thing.

That time is not "gotten back." Once your character spends those 50 days getting to level 10, they have spent time as a resource to have encounters, and encounters as a resource to advance their character. They can re-train, but even then, they don't go back in time so much as go forward in a different way. Those goblins you fought at level 2 stay dead.

Because levels take time. It's just not standardized or made explicit the way, say, XP is. Thus, they're spending that resource, accomplishing things they can't un-accomplish (and failing at things that they won't go back and succeed at).

A further issue - for what sort of benefit are players spending time? Is it to mechanically improve their PCs? If so, this is a bit at odds with the current logic of 4e, which tends to assume that mechanical advancement will take place regardless of how well the players spend their resources (short of a TPK). The benefits of playing well or poorly tend to be story benefits (eg getting to tell a story about the PCs winning rather than losing).

There needs to be some reward for it, and that reward could be tied to mechanical advancement (it takes a week to make your special magic sword), but it probably doesn't have to be. I think for myself, I'd tie mechanics to it even if it wasn't inherently mechanical, because I am a gearhead like that, and don't like to separate out story from mechanics to a large degree.

In Burning Wheel, time is factored in to conflict resolution in this way: a player can choose to have his/her PC act carefully, which gives a bonus to the roll, but on a failure authorises the GM to introduce a significant time-based complication (eg the guards arrive, the time bomb goes off, etc). This makes time a resource of a sort for the players - they can try to use it to get bonuses, at the risk of having it backfire on them. It might be possible to incorporate an idea like this into the skil challenge mechanics.

Sort of like a Take 10 or Take 20, but the player doesn't know the DC, so doesn't know if they're going to succeed....hmm...

But if time is going to operate as a resource at the level of mechanical advancement rather than story advancement, I haven't yet got a clear handle on how you see that working.

Oh, it's sketchy, very protozoan, but it's an idea that's been banging around in my head for a while, and apparently it's a pretty productive side vein in this convo!

How is "Become the greatest swordsman" time-dependent? I'm curious - especially within the structure of a D&D campaign.

Here's a bit of illustration.

There's a new rules element. Let's call it "Aspirations."

Say "Be The Greatest Swordsman" is an option the books present. Nice picture of a dude with a sword doing something awesome. Brightly colored text mentioning +1 to swords and stuff. Magic sword treasure. And you like swords. It costs, say, 5 Adventures to Be The Greatest Swordsman.

On the next page it says "Be A King." Nice picture of a dude with a crown and a bunch of people bowing. Brightly colored text mentioning +1 to kingly duties and stuff. Magic crown treasure. And it's good to be the king. It costs, say, 2 Adventures to Be A King.

There's other stuff, too. "Have An Apprentice," "Slay The Dread Dragon," "Eat The World's Biggest Burrito." Whatever. They have their own +1's and their own magic treasure and their own # of Adventures it takes. The bonuses and the treasure might be replacements for things (handy way to do a 4e style item wish list!), or they might be additional, or they might not even exist if it's just narrative.

Your character can have as many Aspirations as he wants, by choosing them at level-up/chargen. Simply taking an Aspiration gives your character some little boost in that direction, perhaps mechanically (a free sword, or extra gold, or something), perhaps just narratively (people praise your battle finesse, or you're allowed into the Royal Court).

When the DM has a character with an Aspiration, the DM links various adventures to those Aspirations. Say the DM decided that there's some orcs marshaling to the north and that one of the Be A King adventures is to go there and smash their troops! RARGH! But to Be The Greatest Swordsman, that wouldn't help. The DM has linked a different adventure to that Aspiration: one dealing with a legendary traveling knight, disgraced and fallen, whose dark blade is legendary. Maybe the DM uses Aspirations as helpful seeds for possible future adventures, or maybe a more sandbox-style DM simply says "choose one and it's up to you to figure out how to do it," letting the player decide which adventures might work toward the Aspirations.

In an "entropy" model, every time you take an adventure that doesn't work toward an Aspiration, maybe you gain a Penalty for that Aspiration. If you take the adventure to go crush orcs, you take a Penalty for Be The Greatest Swordsman. If you take the adventure to confront the disgraced knight, you gain a Penalty for Be A King. This might mean something narratively (Your sword breaks against an orcish axe! By confronting the knight, your court rivals belittle you in public!), or not.

A Penalty adds to the amount of Adventures you need to complete before you gain your Aspiration. Now it takes 6 Adventures to Be The Greatest Swordsman, or it takes 3 Adventures to Be The King. You've gotta work off your Penalty first.

If your Penalty ever exceeds the amount of Adventures it normally takes, let's say you fail to gain your Aspiration: it ends, it moves on, and you can't try to do that with this character any more. If you go on two Be The Greatest Swordsman adventures, you will fail to Be The King. This might simply mean you can't ever gain the items and associated things. Maybe you loose the little boost granted to you when you took it up. This might mean something more narratively potent (maybe some evil count becomes the king instead! maybe the true greatest swordsman confronts you and humiliates you!).

In the "opportunity cost" model, you don't ever really fail, though you gain Penalties and still have to work them off, and, inevitably, by the time you're level 30, you'll have a few things left undone. Because in addition to working toward your Aspirations, the adventures give you XP, pushing you toward the end of the campaign.

The Entropy cost has the benfit of being a risk, and thus inspiring more action and caution. Of course, it also puts some pressure on characters, which might not make them very happy. The Opportunity Cost model seems to play better with the 4e philosophy, but it's kind of weak to have your Demigod sitting around with his "Start A Farm" Aspiration forever unrealized when you close the campaign. Of course, that could be a reason to keep playing after level 30: to complete all of your character's Aspirations before you end the campaign. Still, I don't see many people looking for a reason to keep playing the same character they've been playing for two years straight, so that's perhaps not a real benefit.

You could also have enemy Aspirations, like "Take Over The Town," and "Assassinate the King," and "Summon Orcus." On every Adventure the characters undertake, the enemies also advance their own Aspirations, which means if the characters don't counteract the enemies directly, the enemies will realize their evil Aspirations, and go on to become more powerful. Maybe the orcs want to Take Over The Town, and by smashing their troops, you work both toward your Aspiration of Be The King, and against the orcs' Aspiration of Take Over The Town. Maybe the disgraced knight wants to assassinate the king, and by going to confront him, you become the Greatest Swordsman, and also stop him from assassinating the king.

The more I think about this, the more I'm getting really, really into the idea of Aspirations like this, as a great way to mechanically represent the various movements of PC's and enemy forces over the course of an entire campaign. It needs more thought, but, I dunno, it seems like something I want to use.

 

[Kingreaper]

The more I think about this, the more I'm getting really, really into the idea of Aspirations like this, as a great way to mechanically represent the various movements of PC's and enemy forces over the course of an entire campaign. It needs more thought, but, I dunno, it seems like something I want to use.

It seems like a really handy GMing tool, for long-term sandbox campaigns.

 

[Hussar]

I don't even think it has to be limited to sandboxes either. In a plotzy style campaign, you could simply limit the Aspirations to things related to the plot. For example, in the Savage Tide AP, your Aspirations could include things like: Ship Captain; Leader of Men; Political Leader; Merchant Prince; or even Pirate Lord. All things that tie into the adventure path.

In a sandbox style campaign, you'd simply broaden the available choices and then let the players hash out whose Aspiration they will pursue. Put it on the players to achieve these goals, rather than weaving them into an over arching plot.

I think it could work in either style quite nicely. And it has the added benefit of strongly tying character concept to the campaign being run.

I really like this idea.

 

[pemerton]

4e, too keep with the example, has an XP reward for every encounter. About 10 encounters gives you a level. About 30 levels gives you all your character will experience. After 11 levels (about 110 encounters), you choose a paragon path that is realized after about another 100 more encounters.

Those encounters do consume time, both at the table, and in the lives of the characters.

<snip>

That time is not "gotten back." Once your character spends those 50 days getting to level 10, they have spent time as a resource to have encounters, and encounters as a resource to advance their character. They can re-train, but even then, they don't go back in time so much as go forward in a different way. Those goblins you fought at level 2 stay dead.

Because levels take time. It's just not standardized or made explicit the way, say, XP is. Thus, they're spending that resource, accomplishing things they can't un-accomplish (and failing at things that they won't go back and succeed at).

OK, I see what you mean.

As it currently stands, I don't see time being a player resource in 4e, because nothing you've done at levels 1 to 10 stops you choosing a given PP, and similarly nothing you've done at levels 11 to 20 stops you choosing a given ED, as a general rule (eg there is no requirement that to become a demigod I must have such-and-such encounters before reaching level 21).

I think your Aspirations idea is interesting. If we treat these as Epic Destinies in 4e terms (eg "be a king" = "Legendary Sovereign"), then the idea is that each ED has a certain set of requirements which various adventures satisfy or obstruct. This looks to me like a somewhat more formalised version of the Immortality rules in the D&D Rules Compendium (which I assume originated in the Masters rules).

What do we envision happening to a player whose character never qualifies for an ED (ie never realises an aspiration)? If that PC is permanently less powerful than his/her fellows, this seems to me to push the game in a firmly more gamist (ie "overcoming challenges") direction. Winning and losing would have real mechanical meaning and expression.

 

[Hussar]

It might be better if Aspirations did not have direct combat effects. That way, win or lose, there is no difference in a character's power relative to the other characters. The mechanical effects of the Aspiration would have to be gradual as well. It's not like you gain everything at the final goal. More along the lines of how a 3e prestige class was built - you gain bits and bobs as you go along, all with an eye on the final goal, which may or may not even reward you with the "best" reward.

Perhaps a particular Aspiration could have goalposts at certain levels, which shifts the focus of the Aspiration. At 10th level, forex, a "Be a King" aspiration results in you gaining title and political influence. You're not a "King" but you're certainly on your way. By, say, 15th, you become King of a nation. By 20th, your nation grows with you as others flock to your fame and standard. At 30th, you're a Legendary Sovereign and control a large area, with neighbours owing fealty to you, ushering in a golden age for your nation.

By golden age, it could be benevolent, or maybe you're Sauron crushing everyone around you in a mailed fist. Either way, you're Legendary.

 

[pemerton]

Hussar, I think I follow that.

It seems like it should make a difference in at least some skill challenges (eg involving politics) that my PC is a king or not, but if we're to stick with avoiding direct combat effects, and furthermore generalise that beyond combat encounters, then that difference shouldn't be a mechanical one (ie no +2 bonuses for being a king).

What sort of difference does that leave? Story differences - and not just meaningless colour (my PC does it the kingly way, yours the yokel way) but differences in story development. So if I'm a king participating in a political skill challenge, this should affect the range of possible outcomes - both successes and failures - in a way that is different from the possiblities for a yokel participating in the same skill challenge. For example, unless I'm prepared to try a stealth check at higher difficulties or as secondary checks, it should be harder for a king to come out of the skill challenge in a way that leaves his participation in events a secret. Conversely, it should be harder (at least in the typical case) for the yokel to use intimidate against a noble. So different Aspirations wouldn't change the overall mechanical difficulty of the challenge, but would make particular approaches to the challenge easier or harder for a given PC (or perhaps open them up or close them off altogether).

Another (related) possibility is that a given Aspiration opens up or closes off particular quests - so it doesn't make it easier or harder to earn quest XP, but it does mean that particular paths to that XP are more or less easy for a given PC.

Assuming I'm thinking along the same general lines as others, one issue does occur to me: the harder it is for a player to change his/her PC's Aspirations in the course of play, the more that an early decision about Aspirations locks the player in to a particular optimal way of proceeding (certain approach to skill challenges, these quests and not those, etc). This has the potential to make the later part of the game all about exploring the consequences of decisions made in the earlier part of the game.

At least in my experience, Cthulhu one-shots can tend to play in this sort of way, and that's part of what's fun about them. I don't know if it works as well as the structure for long term play. One obvious feature of 4e is that it makes it easy to change at least some aspects of the PC in response to play - retrain feats, powers and skills, pick new quests, etc. Other important parts of the PC are locked in from the start, like race and stats. Getting the balance right between fixedness and flexibility is a tricky thing (and obviously to a large extent a matter of taste). It is an issue that comes up for Aspirations just like it comes up for other parts of character building.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Ok, ok, I surrender.

I misread what was being said.

Good on you, Hussar!

If I hadn't XPed you too recently, I would have done so for that post.

 

[Scribble]

I like the idea of tying quests into aspirations... Both in the idea of your particular aspiration opening up different types of quests (And closing some off.)

(Could also be a decent way to open/close affinities with different groups or people...)


I think that a given aspiration should probably include a number of different quests, probably outlined from the beginning?

IE to become the Greatest swordsman in all the land, you probably need to find the master of X fighting style, and learn that style. (IE a new power or something... works best if you're using the alternative rewards thing.)

You'd probably need to find a specific weapon... (Seems like the always want to carry a specific special named weapon.) Maybe an artifact.

Probably need to do certain martial exploits- Like defeat 20 orcs while blind folded or something. (Almost like unlocking achievements in an xbox game.)

And finally you'd probably need to find/defeat the current greatest swordsman in all the land.