Staple Spells Used against Genre Conventions

[Saeviomagy]

jodyjohnson, I think I understand what you're getting at, and I humbly suggest that the folks jumping up and down on you step back for a moment and take a breath.

If I understand what you're saying, you would prefer that your players were more like Beowulf - grab a sword, go into the monster's lair, and battle with Grendel - and less like the "normal" D&D hero - draw a +5 flaming bursting vorpal sword, wait for the cleric to cast bless and bull's strength, the druid to cast barkskin, and the wizard to cast greater invisibility on said hero, allow the rogue to sneak into a flanking position in the shadows in the lair, go into the monster's lair, and kill poor Grendel with a critical before he knows what hit him.

Would that be a correct summary?

Except what she's proposing is the equivalent of saying "grendel doesn't bother to get his sword, that would be unfair".

See?

He/she is saying that anyone who is not a fighter should basically not play.

He/she is saying that monsters with special powers can and should defeat the players handily, because they players should not bother preparing for a fight they know is coming.

"they were destroying orcs before the haste came out".

That says to me that the PC's aren't even spelling up BEFORE they start in on the badguys. They're spelling up while they're fighting.

And he/she is STILL pissed.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

While it would be nice to see D&D where "anyone who is not a fighter should basically not play" rather than the inverse , taking away what makes the fighter good (tactical options) is not going to do that. It just shifts dominance from druids, wizards and clerics to druids, paladins and barbarians and makes wizards, rogues and sorcerers as bad as fighters.

Mongoose's Conan the RPG might be a better choice for a fighter-heavy, buffless game... although Conan and Co. weren't above using good tactics to win and the book reflects that. :\

 

[ptolemy18]

JodyJohnson, I strongly sympathize. I've had the same problem more than once in my own D&D games; even though I'm not DMing explicitly heroic battle-vs.-good-and-evil adventures, I prefer running the game from the assumption that the PCs (at least the MAJORITY of PCs... one or two bad eggs can be fun) are "good guys". It's simply easier to come up with adventures if the characters are "good", and it's more satisfying to run them.

Otherwise, I always find myself ending up in situations like happened a few games ago: one of the PCs plucks out the eye of a hapless opponent (because the captured opponent lipped off to him); and then I, as DM, feel obliged to role-play the injured opponent screaming and rolling around in agony and begging for his life. :/ Wheee. Fun.

(Frankly, I think the REAL heart of the matter is that, as DM, *I* want the fun of playing all the evil sadistic bastards of the campaign world...)

IMHO, the only advantage of running a game with mostly evil PCs is that I somehow feel more free to have horrible stuff happen to them... 'cause after all, if they're behaving so that they'd make unsympathetic characters in a book or movie, they clearly deserve it. The "Dying Earth" RPG actually had a mechanism for this ("Sympathy Points" or something like that).

Running a campaign for evil, amoral characters can be fun... it's just not fun when you've prepared a campaign for good guys and you have to switch midstream. :/

Oh well,

Jason

 

[The Shaman]

Except what she's proposing is the equivalent of saying "grendel doesn't bother to get his sword, that would be unfair".

See?

He/she is saying that anyone who is not a fighter should basically not play.

He/she is saying that monsters with special powers can and should defeat the players handily, because they players should not bother preparing for a fight they know is coming.

"they were destroying orcs before the haste came out".

That says to me that the PC's aren't even spelling up BEFORE they start in on the badguys. They're spelling up while they're fighting.

And he/she is STILL pissed.

I'm sorry, but I don't see that at all in jodyjohnson's post. Am I missing something, or are you perhaps reading a little too much in?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Many thanks to the Shaman, Castellan and Herpes Cineplex for constructively engaging with Jodyjohnsons issue, and understanding where he is coming from.

Although it is very difficult to decide appropriate objectives in my experience, I've found the use of "exp for objectives" to be the best way of encouraging heroic role-playing rather than effective monster slaying; I've used it, moved away from it for simplicity, but I'm going to be going back there soon.

Cheers

 

[Rel]

See what happens when you forget to subscribe to the thread folks? I lost track of this thing for a couple days.

I comprehend the problem but the solution seems obvious to me and less heavy handed than saying "fight fair". Just use more/stronger bad guys.

I have a reputation as a RBDM among my group of players because I always seem to throw huge, nasty encounters with impossible odds at them. And yet they almost always prevail because they are smart and will use good tactics, including knowing when to run away sometimes. In my own evil way this is my highest compliment to them. "Why are you always throwing such nasty, overwhelming opposition at us, Rel?"

"Because you can handle it, my friends."

To me this is what "heroic" gaming is all about. The triumph of the few against the many by guile, cunning and careful application of strength and magic. And I really like the attitude it has bred among my players. They approach every problem as though it can be solved, but also with caution because they know that if it were easily solved then it wouldn't really be a "problem" for them in the first place. They plumb the depths of their abilities and find ways to adapt and overcome the challenges presented to them. And, sometimes, they die trying. That's what lets them know that their sound tactics are worthwhile.

A final word about the "fairness" in war: I think that the pinnacle of warfare is a bloodless victory brought about because the opposition understands that it has no hope of defeating you and surrenders. Barring that, you're best bet is to inflict crippling losses on your enemy early and eliminate their chance to effectively strike back at you. Once you bring about the enemies surrender then I think you have a moral obligation to treat him "fairly". Until then, he's still maneuvering to try and kill you and you'd be wise to make sure he doesn't get that chance.

 

[WizarDru]

So let's analyze this for a second, if you'll indulge me.

There seems to be two separate issues that you're discussing. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, here. Also, since we're lacking some context on specific examples, please don't think I'm trying to mischaracterize you, here. I'm just trying to think out loud, too.

Issue one is one of tactics. It sounds like you're not happy with the manner of play that your group is employing, because it's too 'meta-gamey'. That is to say, they're using tactics that maximize their abilities, but doing so in a more tactical, less-stylistic fashion. That is to say, they enter the monster's lair, consider their options and throw down in a purely 'get them before they get us' fashion, with no consideration other than victory. I suspect, from your comments, that you'd prefer that this play differently, and a tad less strategically (i.e with more of a storied feel).

For example: your players are confronted by Baron Plotter and his minions. "Surrender the Foozle, or suffer the consequences!" says he. The players react switfly, smiting the Baron's minions and gutting the poor Baron in an equally swift and unpleasant fashion. While they could have merely incapcitated their foes and rendered them prisoners, the thought either never occured to them, or they rejected it due to the ineffeciency and increased difficulty of 'bringing 'em back alive'. Perhaps they believed that the only way to earn x.p. (or the most x.p.) was to slay their enemies. This sits poorly with you.

The second issue is they are employing tactics and a style that isn't meshing with the campaign style you had envisioned. I suspect, from your hints, that this is more of a swashbuckling, light-hearted style that you'd hoped for, but the PCs are hard-bitten 'take no prisoners' types. In the previous example, you expected gentlemanly or knightly behavior, not mercenary slaughter. In short, the PCs are treating storied NPCs and monsters at the bottom of the pit in the same fashion, which is entirely NOT what you wanted to have happen.

The question is, what are you shooting for? Which GENRE's conventions are you adhering to? Consider that D&D is informed by the likes of Conan , Elric and Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser as much as Tolkien or Vance. I think it would be valuable to the discussion to know what genre you're moving towards, to understand how you feel the PCs are deviating from it.

I think what may be a disconnect is that you're looking at the players as being bound to a code that they don't accept. They may just be seeing the equation from a different angle, and attacking the problem differently. In my game, there's a variation of this theory concerning the 'beer keg'. It works like this:

In an SCA event, a bunch of people were broken up into teams for a wargame of sorts. Several groups were contesting for a house that was secured, and the goal was to capture a beer keg (or keg of ale, whichever) and return to it a home base. It would prove a difficult task to get the keg home amidst the other teams who were also after it. Several teams considered different strategies to get the keg, sneak it out and sneak it back to the home base. One team stopped and said: "Hey! If we KILL all the other teams, we can just walk in and just take the keg home with no worries." Which is exactly what they did. While the other teams were busy trying to figure out strategies to get the keg, THEY figured out a strategy that didn't involve the keg at all, and they won. Your players may be doing something similar.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

About the "they buffed themselves right up into the Illuminated Heaven to fight the mooks": That was stupid, too. Shooting with cannons at sparrows (and not Jack, either ;-)). They'd probably have wasted the enemies without any buffs.... I'll use buffs against enemies, sure, but I won't waste half of my contigent against utter mooks!

Pretty much. Although substitute 'Heroicly' for 'Stupidly'.

The consensus seems to be fighting honorably is fighting stupidly. Which implies that if you want to be a hero you need to be that much better or just plain lucky.



Good idea. That's really what I'm driving at.



Is there a distinction between fighting smart and fighting unfairly (gaining an overwhelming advantage)?

I think there's a line that gets crossed somewhere but I'm still trying to place it.

It seems that your idea of "heroic" is quite narrow, and that's probably the problem. What you're aiming at aren't just good characters, but exalted ones. Not just Light Warriors, but absolutely White Warriors. No bit of Grey in there. They don't use any tacitcal advantage, even if it means their death.

Now normal good guys aren't like that. Almost all that were didn't survive to get to 2nd level probably. Problem is that there are rolls involved here. You don't just dictate the story, like the directors and authors from those heroic movies and novels do. In many fights, it is necessary to buff yourself, to de-buff and incapacitate the enemy, and so on. In the stories, those heroes were either more powerful then their enemies (so you have to hit the characters with encouters with an EL of 2 or more below their level) or very lucky (and you can't count on that in a RPG, or you'd have to cheat all the time). And both of these measures will result in unhappy pc's unless they actually want to play White-as-...uhm...-a-really-pure-white-thing Heroes.

But unless you state that you want an Exalted campaign with Heroic characters (I'm sorry for the capitals, but there is no double-capital there to emphasize it more), you can expect the characters to use tactical advantages.

As for the line between using smart tactics and being cowardly and unfair: I think when you start using innocent as shields, or start murder random people, you stop being a good guy. Incapacitating and taking prisoner might be a valid choice, but some things and enemies belong dead.

 

[Storm Raven]

Looking at your thread titled "Power Ups and How They Effect the Game", I'm thinking that part of your problem is that you've developed a bunch of house rules that buff up your PCs, and the chickens spawned by that decision are coming home to roost.

Why not try the game "straight" for a bit, and see if this tones things down?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Those jerks in the next town are ruining this heroism thing for you! What are you and your buddies going to do? Why, head on over and bonk that other group of "heroes" on the head. Sure, you'll be as honorable as you can, but you'll be mean and nasty and tell them that if they don't shape up, you'll come back to kick their cowardly hides! So, whallop them, leave them bloodied and bruised (but alive), and head back to your own home base praising your efforts and singing songs about how you gave hell to the cowardly adventurers the next town over.

Well, you might try that. But since you're bound and determined to use only tactics that provide you with no advantage over your foes, and they obviously have no such ideas about combat, you end up dead and that other party loots your lifeless bodies and then goes to tell their local constabulatory that a band of villains came to try to murder them because they've been doing such a good job of killing off all the evil monsters and bad guys in the area.