What I don't get RE: FR and High Level NPC's

[allenw]

If I am starting a new super hero group in New York, should I expect that the citizens will start loving me better than the Avengers or the Fantastic Four?

Considering what Tony Stark and Reed Richards have been up to lately, that might not be too hard.

 

[PeterWeller]

Considering what Tony Stark and Reed Richards have been up to lately, that might not be too hard.

You better get registered first.

Honestly, I love the Realms, and I love the Realms NPCs. I think they give the world more verisimilitude. After all, if people have been adventuring around for the last couple of thousand years, uncovering the ruins from a few thousand years before that, there's going to be a decent population of high level people running around, doing their things.

That being said, I have no problem with clearing the ranks a little bit. There are a whole hell of a lot of very high level NPCs running about, and I can see why some people find it excessive. I really get the impression that the jump forward to 4E Realms is intended to bring back the spirit of the Gray Box. That's still the best campaign set for FR, and I would love the world to regain that sense of wonder and mystery. I've been playing the setting for almost 20 years in a number of different campaigns. It's become almost as familiar as the real world to me, and a D&D world shouldn't evoke those sorts of feelings.

 

[ruleslawyer]

You used the words "good" and "The Chamber" in the same sentence, which makes me giggle. The Chamber is actively involved in meddling in the affairs of the dragonmarked races to further the Prophecy, but there's nothing specifically capital-g good about them in the sourcebooks I've read. What are you referring to?

I put quotes around "good" when describing the Chamber for a reason. The members of the Chamber may not be good aligned, holy, or anything like that, but one can easily make the same complaint about them that some people do about the powerful good NPCs in the Realms. The Chamber is another group of powerful NPCs that has a large incentive to intervene when the world is threatened. Same thing with the Circle of Eight in Greyhawk. As such, they are another "why do the PCs need to save the world if these guys are around?" factor, which was kind of the point I was making.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

In their eyes I was a bad DM, but these are the same players who have 'extra lives' in their new campaign (I don't take part).

Having played in a year-long campaign that included extra lives, I found them way more agreeable than actually raising the dead multiple times. Sometimes you just eat it -- the Barbarian that passes the Fort save versus death on a 3 rolls a 2, you start up a new session not realizing that you finished the last one at 2 HP, or whatever. Rolling a new character is often an annoyance, but when you've lost months of roleplaying because of a fluke, it's utterly infuriating. "You collapse and stabilize" certainly doesn't seem unreasonable every now and again.

 

[Zaukrie]

I don't get this, and never have. If there are powerful demons, devils, dragons, humanoids, humans, goblinoids, Yuan-ti....whatever, who keeps them all in check if there aren't powerful NPCs?

Are the 4-6 people in your group the only ones that ever level up? How is that a living, interesting to role play in, world?

I've never understood the argument that there are too many NPCs in the FR, if anything, I don't get how there aren't more, in FR and all the published worlds.

In a city with tens of thousands, wouldn't there be many, many that are more powerful than the PCs (at least at levels 7 and under)?

 

[Singing Smurf]

I put quotes around "good" when describing the Chamber for a reason. The members of the Chamber may not be good aligned, holy, or anything like that, but one can easily make the same complaint about them that some people do about the powerful good NPCs in the Realms. The Chamber is another group of powerful NPCs that has a large incentive to intervene when the world is threatened. Same thing with the Circle of Eight in Greyhawk. As such, they are another "why do the PCs need to save the world if these guys are around?" factor, which was kind of the point I was making.

Fair enough, I understand your point now.

I would argue that events that threaten the world (or nation, or city) are not necessarily inconsistent with the Prophesy, and therefore the Chamber would not necessarily be moved to intervene. In fact, they could even try to stop the players from interfering...you know, that would make a great twist for the game I'm running right now. Thank you for stimulating the idea!

 

[Brewhammer]

It's not just the A list characters like Elminster and Drizzt (who's not actually all that powerful) that can be problematic. There are lots of local high level (but not epic plus) NPCs scattered around the Realms too.

What purpose is there in building lots of high powered NPCs into the setting if using them is bad DMing?

I am not saying using the high level NPC's is poor DM'ing. I'm saying that having the high level NPC's constantly coming in to save the day 'at the last minute' if PC's mess up (which as I said in the first post on this thread is a common complaint I see players make) would be poor DM'ing.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The real problem, IMO, is with the D&D mechanics that imply that a high-level wizard can be everywhere at once solving every problem. My guess is that Ed originally wrote in all these folks without considering the effects of ubiquitous teleportation and divination effects. If one reduced the availability of such effects (I'm lucky enough to use a magic system that does this, and 4e may end up doing this as well), then the implication of the presence of those NPCs changes.

Maybe that's really part of the thing. Many of the high level NPCs are to mobile. If a high level Fighter watches Waterdeep, great for him. But without teleportation and divination, he can't afford to react to everything his spies report to him. PCs even have a reason for going on a quest, and they can even meet him in person and get the job from him. He can't go 100 miles north to scout the Orc camps, because that would force him to leave Waterdeep for weeks. But a D&D wizard? Teleport there, fireball them all, and teleport back.

There might be a "solution" for this even with the wizards - if the wizard can do it, so can his enemies, and again, he can't afford to waste his fireballs on the, because any time an enemy high level spellcaster could attack Waterdeep while he isn't there.
But this is a very instable solution. It stretches our suspension of disbelief...

I remember that there was an adventure set in Greyhawk (I don't know how it was called) that offered an alternative explaination why the characters had to do work for a high level caster. They were working for Bigby, I think. He send them to explore a dungeon. He didn't d it because he was very old, and it was just to dangerous for someone with a remaining constitutions score of 4 to enter several combats...

Basically, the character is powerful in theory, but there is something that limits his mobility severely.

 

[Stile De Mornay]

Haven't read post by post so this may have been brought up already.

But, so what if the players are trying to stop the god of evilness that will destroy the realms.

There probably is something else going on just as awful and life threatening.

Cults act up all the time. High level FR NPCs are probably dealing with something else while our little PCs can deal with the "minor" problem.

Just because it's your job and important to you.. doesn't mean it's the most important.

 

[Barastrondo]

I don't get this, and never have. If there are powerful demons, devils, dragons, humanoids, humans, goblinoids, Yuan-ti....whatever, who keeps them all in check if there aren't powerful NPCs?

That's kind of a loaded question. The topic at hand seems closer to "who keeps them all in check if there aren't as many powerful NPCs?"

For powerful NPCs to be a consistent problem in players' perception of how much they matter in the world, there are two factors at stake: magnitude, and frequency. The Forgotten Realms get the most flak for this sort of thing because there are both NPCs of orders of magnitude well above what the average campaign will ever see (unless I'm really misjudging just how many epic campaigns are out there), and there are lots of them, not just one or two. The Chosen of Mystra are probably being singled out in particular because not only are they really powerful, but there are so many of them that they have their own sub-grouping of "ways to be a really powerful NPC".

The optimal answer to the "who keeps the evil in check" question is typically "enough NPCs to just barely handle it, until a significant variable arises, then you need PCs." WotC, and many fans, likely feel that the FR currently have "more than enough NPCs to handle it", and are adjusting accordingly. The other solution would be to increase the level of evil threat so much that the current standard of NPCs is just barely holding it back, in which case I would assume the Forgotten Realms would wind up looking a lot like a heavy metal album cover. (Which would be kind of cool, but probably no more "like the Forgotten Realms" than a reduction in NPCs would be.)