VirgilCaine
First Post
Nightfall said:Exactly and what would be the point of all that time spent feeding them cheetos, Virgil?
What are you talking about?
When Adventure Designers Cheat
- Thread starter AuraSeer
- Start date
What are you talking about?
Slife said:
Running out of food is not a typical feature of D&D adventures - spells like Create Food and Water are designed expressly to exclude it as a typical consideration.
I'm not sure what quest for gold you have in mind in LoTR. Of the magic weapons, Sting is mere flavour, and Aragorn gets his weapon near the beginning of the adventure, not as a reward for completing it. And before Narsil is reforged, he is armed only with a broken blade - not a standard choice for a D&D adventurer.
Unlike D&D, LoTR has a party of vastly different character levels, with varying levels of equipment (Merry and Pippin start with nothing, Frodo with a mithril shirt and Sting). Most magic item gain results not from overcoming challenges, but from friendly NPCs: Elrond has Narsil reforged, Galadriel hands out gifts, etc. The challenges they face are not ones they can overcome by expending a quarter of their resources: 9 Nazgul vs 4 halflings and 1 ranger, 1 Balrog plus hundreds of orcs vs 9 PCs, 2 halflings vs dozens of orcs (the Uruk-hai), 2 halflings versus Shelob and a fortress of orcs (Cirith Ungol). The hobbits really have no D&D-type resources to expend at all (maybe the Phial of Galadriel is an exception, but it seems to be an unlimited-use item); the other NPCs are non-spell users with no one-use items (the least resource-management style characters) with the excpetion of Gandalf, whose main constraint on spell use is one which, in D&D, would be considered mere flavour. And the resolution to the whole thing is an obvious contrivance.
I can imagine an RPG that could make this sort of play possible. One possibility might be to split characters into 3 categories: the Hobbits would have weak abilities but lots of Fate Points to spend on escapes or good fortune; the fighters (Boromir, Legolas, Gimili) would have strong abilities; and the destined (Aragorn, Gandalf) would have base abilities somewhere in between these two categories, but boosts analogous to TRoS spiritual attributes, that kick in only when they are pursuing their pre-destined fates. This might lead to a style of play in which the main plot direction is driven by the destinies of Aragorn and Gandalf (because their players naturally have an incentive to play to those strengths), with quirks introduced by the Hobbits' frequent use of Fate Points. The unfated fighters would simply be along for the ride (they would make good cohorts, or Ars Magica-style grogs, but would violate the D&D maxim that all characters should enjoy equal time in the spotlight).
Whether or not this would be a viable game, it would not be a D&D game.
Victim said:
And the Hobbit reads like a D&D game how? They talk the trolls to death, the troll loot includes 2 artifacts (maybe 3, if Sting is a minor artifiact), the ring (another artifact) is found through complete contrivance, the encounter with the goblins is (by D&D standards) completely inane, the dragon is killed off-screen by an NPC, and no +5 items are purchased with the recovered gold - its value is purely symbolic, re-establishing the Dwarves as rightful Kings Under The Mountain.
Celebrim
Legend
pemerton said:
Very few books read like a D&D game period because by definition a book is a story on rails, and gamers rarely like to feel like they are on rails. That said...
So the players and DM were open to alternative solutions. You've a problem with that?
What makes you think you are dealing with artifacts? You are dealing with three magic blades, no more and no less. If you've romanticized them in your mind, it shows that the DM is doing a good job of presentation with his magic items.
The ring is - like almost all artifacts in D&D - a plot device. It's the hook the writer (game master) is using to tie the players into the next adventure.
Why? Bilbo the Rogue sounds the alarm. Most of the dwarves, being asleep can only take partial actions, and being dwarves lose the iniative anyway. Gandalf the Wizard casts lightning bolts, and then when he realizes how badly they are outnumbered, he casts invisibility. There is a pitched fight but the goblins use thier advantage in numbers and surprise to grapple with the dwarves - which is precisely the tactic I would have chosen as a DM to nuetralize high level PC's with low level goblins. And, like a good DM, he doesn't just kill off the PC's because he can, but goes free form. Then later, Gandalf the Wizard casts pyrotechnics and uses the confusion that ensues and a lucky critical on the goblin leader to free Thorin the Fighter. Then Thorin and Balin and thier retainers have another pitched fight with the goblins, and the party makes a strategic withdraw. The DM arranges a series of interesting set peice encounters with various pursuing goblins in what would be an extremely exciting chase/battle sequence if ran correctly. In the confusion, the halfling rogue gets left behind. But the rogue is resourceful and uses his Bluff, Move Silently and so forth to get out on his own. It's a well played sequence by everyone, and if I was in that play group we would be remincing about it for years.
Ok, I admit that that violates a major tenent of game play, but I like how the DM was setting up the PC's to see how thier actions had unintended consequences.
First, the DM was an old school type who believes - and I agree - that magic items lose thier charm and specialness when you can just by them off the shelf like grocercies - especially prestige items like +5 swords and such. Secondly, I take it you've never played a D&D game with a strong political theme? Thirdly, I take it you've never read RA Salvatore's 'Streams of Silver'?
Emirikol said:
Fair enough - especially as Gary Gygax explicitly cites them over Tolkein as influences.
I can't comment on Lankhmar, as I don't know it outside of various D&D adaptations.
The Conan stories I do know, and to be honest I'm not sure how well they adapt either. In saying this I've got two classic Conan tales in mind - Phoenix on the Sword, and Tower of the Elephant.
In both stories, the protagonist is (in D&D terms) probably a fighter/rogue - one of the less resource-management type characters. Some would say that Conan is a barbarian, but if so his rage works in quite a different way from D&D barbarian rage. In particular, rather than being a per-day ability which definitely does raise questions of resource management, it is more like an ability triggered when a physical obstacle gets in the way of his goal realisation. Mechanically, this might be modelled by a system like TRoS spiritual attributes: a boost to Strength available whenever a physical obstacle to a character goal is encountered.
In Phoenix on the Sword, the magical item is not acquired through resource-type play but as a plot mechanism - mechanically, this could be conceived of perhaps as the spending by a player of Fate Points for his or her character.
In Tower of the Elephant, the loot is not gained. This thus violates the D&D rules about treasure per encounter. In fact, to model the flavour of a story like this, you need a system where, while a character's goal might be acquisition of loot, the player's goal is something else. Thus, the player goal (and therefore fun) is not thwarted by having the loot be taken away. (By analogy - the goal of a CoC character is to stay sane, but for players the goal is to be scared - thus, characters losing their sanity does not stop the players having the fun for which they came to the gaming table.)
OGL Conan goes part of the way in this direction, by abandoning the D&D rules for encounters, treasure gain and XP. Unfortunately, it doesn't really put anything very concrete in their place: there is simply a handwave in the direction of levelling every now and then and handing out the odd fate pont. This puts a big burden on the GM to construct his or her own system of linking player goals with character action.
The other thing which I feel a Conan game would need would be a way of integrating more gritty combat with less risk of PC death. OGL Conan goes quite a way in this direction, by reducing high-level hit points, removing the bulk of spells and magic items, and adding the "left for dead" rule; though I think the mechanics for the latter are made needlessly complicated. Once we introduce a Fate Point system for character survival, I don't see the point of putting in an extra rule that your Fate Point may not work - especially as a second Fate Point should in any event be enough to make sure someone comes by and finds the character.
Anyway, that's my take on it.
Celebrim - I didn't say that you can't use D&D combat-resolutionrules to replicate parts of the Hobbit. I said it doesn't read like a D&D adventure.
Picking up on particular points:
*Alternative solutions are fine - but D&D doesn't support them as a principal method of conlfict resolution, because they don't fit well into a level-based CR/EL approach. This is shown by the mere fact that we call them "alternative solutions", whereas in a different game system, with mechanics intended to support a different type of play, they would be the norm (I'm thinking now of Dying Earth's rules for repartee).
*Glamdring and Foehammer not artifacts? Perhaps not, but D&D doesn't support non-artifact level unique items very well. If Glamdring is just a sword +2, why do the goblins flee in terror from it - a sword +2 is no different from adding a couple of levels to a fighter, after all, and so while well-adapted to its purposes in D&D, of adding a boost to a certain type of character of a certain level, is not well-adapted to constituting an item that spreads fear in those targeted by it. (When we move beyond weapons, there are some memorable exceptions like Spheres of Annihilation.)
*The battle with the goblins also does not play like the vast bulk of D&D combats. And where are the other EL-appropriate encounters for the rest of the adventure?
*Treating +5 items as prestige items that are not easily accessible will, I think, hurt the balance of high-level 3E D&D.
Picking up on a more general point raised by your post: one could use the D20 mechanics to play a game which ignores D&D rules for encounter design, XP, treasure-by-level, etc, and favours "alternative solutions" that do not rely on the characters' deployment of their level-dependent resources. But one would then be playing a different game from D&D.
Picking up on particular points:
*Alternative solutions are fine - but D&D doesn't support them as a principal method of conlfict resolution, because they don't fit well into a level-based CR/EL approach. This is shown by the mere fact that we call them "alternative solutions", whereas in a different game system, with mechanics intended to support a different type of play, they would be the norm (I'm thinking now of Dying Earth's rules for repartee).
*Glamdring and Foehammer not artifacts? Perhaps not, but D&D doesn't support non-artifact level unique items very well. If Glamdring is just a sword +2, why do the goblins flee in terror from it - a sword +2 is no different from adding a couple of levels to a fighter, after all, and so while well-adapted to its purposes in D&D, of adding a boost to a certain type of character of a certain level, is not well-adapted to constituting an item that spreads fear in those targeted by it. (When we move beyond weapons, there are some memorable exceptions like Spheres of Annihilation.)
*The battle with the goblins also does not play like the vast bulk of D&D combats. And where are the other EL-appropriate encounters for the rest of the adventure?
*Treating +5 items as prestige items that are not easily accessible will, I think, hurt the balance of high-level 3E D&D.
Picking up on a more general point raised by your post: one could use the D20 mechanics to play a game which ignores D&D rules for encounter design, XP, treasure-by-level, etc, and favours "alternative solutions" that do not rely on the characters' deployment of their level-dependent resources. But one would then be playing a different game from D&D.
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