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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
What proportion of the population are adventurers?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7612290" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>That's great, but I can explain why it matters to my game and does impact how PC's interact with the world.</p><p></p><p>Demographics allow me as the DM to improvise while still mostly wearing my Referee hat with its stance of neutrality, without having to put on my Storyteller hat with its non-neutral goals or at least serving to keep in check the impulses of my Storyteller hat. In other words, without setting myself some guidelines for what NPCs were like, when I found myself stating up an NPC on the fly there would be a temptation to tailor the NPC to the level and abilities of the PCs or to the outcome I wanted to produce. And while that isn't all bad, when you are dealing with improvisation there is a strong temptation to Schrodinger's stat blocks, and that's a form of railroading. So by having an idea regarding average ability scores, average levels, commonality of classes, and indeed what stat block the every persons of the setting has, then when it matters what the abilities of an NPC are, I can import in an appropriate NPC without prejudice. </p><p></p><p>So for example, if the rogue wants to con a merchant, then I know I can make decision based on what I a priori established as fair and not based on whether I'm happy with the rogue's player making the decision to con the honest merchant. And if the rogue fails in his con, then I can make a decision on what stats the town watch has based on what I a priori established and not based on whether or not I want the rogue to get away rather than being caught. And my player's eventually come to see me as the sort of DM that gives them a fair shake, and doesn't level up every merchant in the town just because the rogue is now 10th level. And society stays what it is as the PC increases in power and importance, and so leveling up is meaningful, and not just merely fighting level 70 bears with the same chance of success and same difficulty that you had fighting a level 7 bear.</p><p></p><p>That's one of the reason world building is meaningful.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7612290, member: 4937"] That's great, but I can explain why it matters to my game and does impact how PC's interact with the world. Demographics allow me as the DM to improvise while still mostly wearing my Referee hat with its stance of neutrality, without having to put on my Storyteller hat with its non-neutral goals or at least serving to keep in check the impulses of my Storyteller hat. In other words, without setting myself some guidelines for what NPCs were like, when I found myself stating up an NPC on the fly there would be a temptation to tailor the NPC to the level and abilities of the PCs or to the outcome I wanted to produce. And while that isn't all bad, when you are dealing with improvisation there is a strong temptation to Schrodinger's stat blocks, and that's a form of railroading. So by having an idea regarding average ability scores, average levels, commonality of classes, and indeed what stat block the every persons of the setting has, then when it matters what the abilities of an NPC are, I can import in an appropriate NPC without prejudice. So for example, if the rogue wants to con a merchant, then I know I can make decision based on what I a priori established as fair and not based on whether I'm happy with the rogue's player making the decision to con the honest merchant. And if the rogue fails in his con, then I can make a decision on what stats the town watch has based on what I a priori established and not based on whether or not I want the rogue to get away rather than being caught. And my player's eventually come to see me as the sort of DM that gives them a fair shake, and doesn't level up every merchant in the town just because the rogue is now 10th level. And society stays what it is as the PC increases in power and importance, and so leveling up is meaningful, and not just merely fighting level 70 bears with the same chance of success and same difficulty that you had fighting a level 7 bear. That's one of the reason world building is meaningful. [/QUOTE]
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