Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6536314" data-attributes="member: 4937">The actual implications of the posting are, "I don't even mind rats or caravan guards, yet my games aren't like that.  You complain about them, so why are your games like that?"  I don't what you are amused about.  It's a very serious point.I've never met a DM who didn't work hard at it, who wasn't a lot of fun.  And I've never met a DM that didn't work hard at it, who was.Something big happens while you are at a public gathering is a great start to a campaign.  It gives the DM the ability to include the PC's in something epic, while at the same time not making the entire weight of the world depend on the still narrow shoulders of low level PC's.   It also makes for great indirect story telling.   In the opening of the story, the PC's find out that they can be local heroes, protect the innocent, fight the monsters, and save at least their little corner of the day.   As the story progresses, D&D's inherent story of zero to hero begins to play out, as the PC's take on larger and larger roles in each subsequent encounter.   Gradually the things that seemed epic and impressive become things that they can do themselves, and then they find themselves transcending even the big heroes whose efforts that they glimpsed earlier on, becoming first peers, and the ultimately lords in their own right.I just don't agree.  In fact, if you look back over the history of adventure writing, on thing that stands out is the very high quality seen in modules for low level characters.  U1 is better designed than either U2 or U3.   The Village of Homlet and its moat house is better designed than the Temple of Elemental Evil.   'Whispering Cairn' is not only the best single module in the adventure path, it might well be the best single module Paizo has published.  Sunlit Citadel was a better designed adventure than any of those that followed it.   A few small flaws aside, 'Of Sound Mind' is yet one of the best modules for 3e D&D.  'Mad God's Key' is a well done module, easily adaptable to low level play, and so forth.Honestly, increasing the level of characters and monsters gains you very very little.  The numbers get bigger, but that's about it.  And it's not like bigger numbers don't come without costs.  Fundamentally, unless you change the PC's social status and shift the focus of play to politics, philosophy, or some scope larger than merely physical strife, leveling up in D&D is like leveling up in Diablo or WoW - the numbers get bigger, but fighting a 70th level bear is pretty much like fighting a 5th level bear.In my experience, if the GM can't handle low level play well, he'll tend to be even worse at high level play.  Any decent DM age 15 or higher ought to be able to make a fun little decent dungeon just out of the tables in the back of the 1e DMG if nothing else.  It might not mean much.  It might not have much of a theme.  It might not have a lot of literary value, but it can still be approach as fun for what it is - kicking down doors, killing things, and taking their stuff.   But writing for high level play, that's tough.   If you stick to dungeon crawling, you have to up your game, because otherwise eventually a steady diet of exploration of space and tactical combat tires even the most hardcore grognard and hack-n-slasher.   If you try to up your game by going broad, there is a tendency to row-boat worlds, poorly designed railroads, DM PC's, and open worlds where every fight occurs in an empty street (or equivalent) - all the bad parts of the dungeon with none of the good ones.  The amount of work required to make a world breathe and live in that bigger space is simply more than most DMs can take on, and so the amount of improvisation goes up, creativity consequently goes down, and details become vaguer and vaguer like paintings that look ok from a distance but don't stand to scrutiny.   Honestly, for a bad DM probably the only advantage of being higher level is it's easier to avoid being bullied by the DM, because typically the ones that think going big solves everything don't have a lot of system mastery or tactical ability either.</blockquote>

Verification