The Call of the World Builder

[Voadam]

But, again, since this is the level of campaign creation, why not leave the actual mechanics up to the individual DM? In the flavor text you say something to the effect of, "some slain by the hideous energies of a shadow arise as spawn." ((Ok, I suck at this, but you get the idea)).

It's then up to the DM do determine how often things spawn. Toss some guidelines into the DMG discussing this sort of thing and you're good to go.

If you have rock solid mechanics for this, then any campaign which uses the default shadow should follow those mechanics. If you leave the mechanics fuzzy, then an individual DM can deal with it as needed. DM A might just want to use half a dozen shadows in his dungeon because they're cool and he doesn't need spawning rules. DM B wants to make shadows a major part of his campaign, so, he looks at the guidelines in the DMG for how to develop this sort of plot (assuming he wants a Dawn of the Dead sort of thing) and goes ahead and does that.

I want ready to use monsters out of the MM. Leaving it up to the DM with no default means there is most of a monster ready to use with game relevant aspects the DM must define himself.


I'd rather change defaults I don't like than have to do extra work to be able to use a basic monster out of the box.

Templates and monster design guidelines are great, but I want to use monsters from the MM, not just use the MM to make my own creations.

Shadow spawning rates only matter to a very small subset of games. Unless shadows play a fairly large part in a given campaign, most people don't care and completely ignore the rules. Leaving out those rules would not affect them.

For those who do feature shadows as a main element, they're likely going to go beyond the RAW anyway, so, anything you provide is likely going to get ignored also.

If a shadow attacks and kills your NPC torch bearer/summoned monster/animal companion/ or PC the spawning ability decision is immediately relevant, does the party now face one or two shadows? Spawning rates matter in combat where there is the risk of a shadow killing something, which I would not think are rare uses of a shadow in a D&D encounter.

Why include left handed torque wrenches in a toolkit?

I want my at the table toolkit to have finished tools I can grab and use, not just parts to create my own tools.

 

[Voadam]

That's just not true. The DM can say something happens without having to use mechanics to say it does, just like I can say my PC has red hair without having to roll on a table. There aren't any human reproduction mechanics, yet life still goes on.

You seem to be attributing to me something I didn't say, or I think you are just wrong.

I said (and what you quoted from me) was

If there are no mechanics for spawning the default would be no spawning, that they'd need to be individually created somehow just as mummies, zombies, skeletons, and liches must be.

I stand by the fact that things without the spawning mechanic should not mechanically spawn from killing foes in combat.

The second half here seems an unrelated point. Of course the DM can say something happens and not have defined mechanics for it.

Take the 3.5 mummy I was referring to and their description of mummy creation

Mummies are preserved corpses animated through the auspices of dark desert gods best forgotten.

No mechanics there and I don't feel any are needed. But if you said mummies in your game can turn you into one of them instantly from their attacks that's fine but its a house rule with mechanical implications, you're adding the create spawn ability to them and changing the mechanical monster.

If you meant that if it is undefined then a DM can create an explanation without mechanical implications (like your red hair example) I don't disagree, but creating the instant spawning style does have mechanical implications that will affect encounters with them.

What you do need mechanics for is resolving conflicts (in 4e, at least how I think it is designed to be played) between PCs and "the world". If you don't want PCs to become shadow spawn if they are killed by them, then don't let shadows have that ability. That says nothing about how shadows can affect NPCs.

It says nothing about how shadows can affect NPCs? I am not getting your point here.

 

[Just Another User]

It says nothing about how shadows can affect NPCs? I am not getting your point here.

I think (and I could be wrong) that he mean that monsters could affect NPC in a different way than how they affect PCs, for example, a medusa could petrify a commoner on the spot, no rolls required, but could only do "petrifing" damage on a PC, or just slow him or something like that because they are soooo heroic, also a NPC killed by a shadows rise as another shadow, a PC (or even a NPC killed "on-stage") don't, etc.

Which is a perfectly valid position, It just happen that I don't like it, it is too much "super-heroic" for my taste, like in a batman comic where Joker can kill a cop with a casual hit but could never do the same to Batman or Robin, I like my fantasy character to be heroes, not superheroes, 3e already went a little too much in that direction to my liking.

 

[katahn]

I find the idea that the medusa can instantly petrify a mook but not a player character since the latter is supposed to be a hero. Yes it is very cinematic, but that is perfectly in keeping with the new design philosophy that says the players are the heroes and supposed to be heroic - getting instantly turned to stone isn't very heroic. Of course if someone wants to run a grittier and less cinematic game they can change that to their heart's content.

I liken it to the idea that in the Matrix movies the viral Agent Smith is able to immediately absorb the random NPC human and infiltrate Zion but even against Morpheus he couldn't do it instantly. Morpheus was a hero, and while he still had to be helped by his party (Neo in this case) he was clearly a cut above a non-hero.

 

[mmadsen]

In a Realism based game, that thug has a real high chance of killing Batman. This is the real world, where dodging bullets just doesn't happen. Or at least, wounding him badly. Because he's got a gun, and those things are lethal.

What's ironic is that this lens of "realism" isn't particularly realistic; it's more nihilistic or anti-heroic. In real-life, a thug with a gun misses with almost every shot, except at point-blank range, and pistol wounds can be lethal, but generally aren't.

What's unrealistic about, say, Batman, is not that he's able to beat up thugs without getting shot, but that he does it over and over again and never takes that one unlucky bullet to the head.

 

[mmadsen]

In 3e, monster abilities were extremely well defined. Very carefully constructed. But, because they were defined so clearly, your game world became defined by the mechanics of the game. If a given element always works in a particular way, your game world has to reflect that. So, if you had an idea that wasn't really covered by the mechanics, you had to bend and twist the mechanics to fit, or you had to change your idea. Typically changing your idea was easier.

I've been making this same point for years. It is better to leave some things out of the rules than to include them in a restrictive way. Of course, this carries into far more areas than you're discussing. For instance, 4E seems to be taking 3E's idea of a feat for every combat maneuver and expanding on it, which means every character needs to have his "cool" options pre-defined.

In other words, it appears that your world building will actually be far less constrained by the mechanics than it was in 3e. It has to be since the 4e mechanics are less concretely defined.

So, why are all the world builder's here pissed off?

I appears that most people want an extremely well-defined world that perfectly matches their own tastes. That, of course, is impossible to deliver, but that's what people seem to want.

 

[LostSoul]

I stand by the fact that things without the spawning mechanic should not mechanically spawn from killing foes in combat.

I agree, more or less. If spawning = adding more monsters to the encounter, the DM has the authority to do that anyway, so he can just do it. If spawning also includes turning PCs into NPCs, then I think you do need mechanics for it.

No mechanics there and I don't feel any are needed. But if you said mummies in your game can turn you into one of them instantly from their attacks that's fine but its a house rule with mechanical implications, you're adding the create spawn ability to them and changing the mechanical monster.

It depends if by "you" you mean a PC or an NPC. If it's just an NPC, you don't need mechanics for it.

It says nothing about how shadows can affect NPCs? I am not getting your point here.

I think (and I could be wrong) that he mean that monsters could affect NPC in a different way than how they affect PCs, for example, a medusa could petrify a commoner on the spot, no rolls required, but could only do "petrifing" damage on a PC, or just slow him or something like that because they are soooo heroic, also a NPC killed by a shadows rise as another shadow, a PC (or even a NPC killed "on-stage") don't, etc.

That would be it.

I don't think it's because the PCs are so heroic, though. I think it's because the only way a player can actually play the game is through his PC. Because of that, you have to treat NPCs differently from PCs.