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Transcending the mundane. How to make martial classes epic.
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6018649" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I think this is the fault of the notion of the 'adventure path', and in particular the post 3e era adventure path with its carefully constructed 3 level linear dungeon with 13.3 balanced encounters per level. If you trace it back to its origins, it's what I call the 'Blizzard North' RPG model, based on the fact that Blizzard really popularized the design with Diablo2, though you can also see it in Bethesda games were the world really does level up with you. The idea is that you work out the math ahead of time, so that it 'just works', but where 'works' means maintains a consistant level of challenge and a consistant experience rather than modelling living in a fantasy world.</p><p></p><p>When the DM has that perspective on what play is, then as a player you soon come to wonder why you bother to level up at all (at least I do). I see that its lately become vogue at tables to not track XP, but I wonder why we even have levels sometimes. If you look at an RPG like World of Warcraft which I site because the problem is so clear in the model in its purest form, at 5th level you are fighting boars and bears, but again at 70th level or 80th level you are once again fighting boars and bears. Is it really true that the bears in the country of X are 10,000 times as powerful as those in the country of Y? Is it really true that the meanest soldier in X, could return to Y and put everything right and resolve all the troubles with the least of trouble? That is to say, is it really true that in Y, where the bears are but 15th level, that they don't need a hero - a one legged, half blind eldery farmer from X would serve better?</p><p></p><p>Of course not. The only logical explanation is that in fact your character never leveled up, and was just as powerful at 1st level as you are at 85th (or 90th or whatever the cap is now). The foes you vanquished then were of the same order that you vanquish now. Nothing changed about your character in the game world. All that has changed is that at the level of game mechanics describing the world, the numbers describing the world were made arbitrarily larger because at some level the designer recognized that bigger numbers made the player feel more impressed - even if and probably especially if the number was in fact describing the same thing.</p><p></p><p>However, this more addresses the subject of how do we make the game feel epic under the first definition of epic - making what you do as a player feel like it matters. I'm not sure it addresses the other definition of epic, which is more like making the player feel like he has greater freedom to take narrative control as a result of the breadth and depth of his character's influence over the setting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6018649, member: 4937"] I think this is the fault of the notion of the 'adventure path', and in particular the post 3e era adventure path with its carefully constructed 3 level linear dungeon with 13.3 balanced encounters per level. If you trace it back to its origins, it's what I call the 'Blizzard North' RPG model, based on the fact that Blizzard really popularized the design with Diablo2, though you can also see it in Bethesda games were the world really does level up with you. The idea is that you work out the math ahead of time, so that it 'just works', but where 'works' means maintains a consistant level of challenge and a consistant experience rather than modelling living in a fantasy world. When the DM has that perspective on what play is, then as a player you soon come to wonder why you bother to level up at all (at least I do). I see that its lately become vogue at tables to not track XP, but I wonder why we even have levels sometimes. If you look at an RPG like World of Warcraft which I site because the problem is so clear in the model in its purest form, at 5th level you are fighting boars and bears, but again at 70th level or 80th level you are once again fighting boars and bears. Is it really true that the bears in the country of X are 10,000 times as powerful as those in the country of Y? Is it really true that the meanest soldier in X, could return to Y and put everything right and resolve all the troubles with the least of trouble? That is to say, is it really true that in Y, where the bears are but 15th level, that they don't need a hero - a one legged, half blind eldery farmer from X would serve better? Of course not. The only logical explanation is that in fact your character never leveled up, and was just as powerful at 1st level as you are at 85th (or 90th or whatever the cap is now). The foes you vanquished then were of the same order that you vanquish now. Nothing changed about your character in the game world. All that has changed is that at the level of game mechanics describing the world, the numbers describing the world were made arbitrarily larger because at some level the designer recognized that bigger numbers made the player feel more impressed - even if and probably especially if the number was in fact describing the same thing. However, this more addresses the subject of how do we make the game feel epic under the first definition of epic - making what you do as a player feel like it matters. I'm not sure it addresses the other definition of epic, which is more like making the player feel like he has greater freedom to take narrative control as a result of the breadth and depth of his character's influence over the setting. [/QUOTE]
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