Why the World Exists

[Greg K]

When I create a world for my game, it exists to

1. provide a place to adventure and explore
2. Set the overall tone (e.g, post apocalyptic, arabaian adventures, gothic horror, wuxia) and magic level.
3. Set the ground rules for character creation
a) the PC races that exist
b) the cultures and the classes and/or class variants found within them
c) the deities and their domains
d) how magic will work (i.e, classes and magic system used)

4. Help me to provide individual players with information based on their character's cultural and, if any, organizational ties (including information not avaialbe to other PCs). This information can be useful in-game and, should the player choose, when creating backgrounds and is intended to help further ground the character into the setting .
a) cultural characteristics
b. local important NPCs (which may serve as mentors)
c) non-secret socieities and organizations (e.g, guilds, wizard colleges, ) including prestige class based organizations
d) some recent and historical events of interest, rumors, and places (including "legendary" or unique creatures known to be inhabitng them)
e) the reduction or waiving of certain Knowledge check DCs in a given region, city, etc.

5. (Edit): Make it easier to wing it when the players do the unexpected and change their mind at the last minute about where they are going to go.

 

[The Ghost]

I can't figure out the difference between:

1. Engineering the game world to fit the challenge level appropriate to the PCs by declining to place a huge dragon in a nearby forest, or

2. Engineering the game world to fit the challenge level appropriate to the PCs by putting a huge dragon in a nearby forest, and then ensuring that the PCs know not to go there, and if they do have to go there making sure they do so by encountering a level appropriate "sneak by the dragon" challenge instead of a level inappropriate "fight the dragon and get eaten" death scene.

I think that you have set this up to fail. (Not intentionally, but by the nature of being the one to define the sides of the argument.) You have not accounted for two things. One, challenge level appropriate may not be the design goal. Two, and more importantly, there are more reasons to use a dragon (insert any high-level challenge) than just to fight or sneak by. Story and plot come to mind.

 

[Thasmodious]

I don't know where several of the posters have gotten their conception of the 'wish list' in 4e from. Is this some internet myth that has risen and been spread by people who haven't actually read the books?

There is no Wish List system, no Wish List section. There is nothing about giving players exactly what they want for free (which more than one poster, including the OP, has claimed in this thread). On page 125, under the section about Awarding Treasure, there is this paragraph:

A great way to make sure you give players magic items they’ll be excited about is to ask them for wish lists. At the start of each level, have each player write down a list of three to five items that they are intrigued by that are no more than four levels above their own level. You can choose treasure from those lists (making sure to place an item from a different character’s list each time), crossing the items off as the characters find them. If characters don’t find things on their lists, they can purchase or enchant them when they reach sufficient level.

That's it. It's not a system, its a suggestion to give the DM some guidance in coming up with treasure awards centered around the idea that since magic shops are a thing of the past, items tailored to the party are certainly more useful than random items that will just have to be disenchanted. It is not a list of demands, Fed-EX does not deliver the items to the characters at the local inn. It's simply a suggestion for coming up with useful items the PCs will be excited to get to fill up the magic item part of the treasure parcels.

I don't use wish lists myself. My players are not the book reading types, they haven't poured over the PHB items, and certainly not the AV items. I listen and they discuss things they want and are looking for. Sometimes, I have asked them to write me a brief list of short term goals the character is pursuing during downtime. I've been doing this for years, and those background bits, which are sometimes "trying to find a flaming sword", often turn up as sidequests, adventure seeds, and such.

 

[Rel]

After a good bit of thought I think that the Silmarillion would have been a lot better with some Tauren Death Knights.

 

[Cadfan]

Also, it seems disingenuous to suggest that not having a "level inappropriate" thing at all and having a "level inappropriate" thing but not making it mandatory are the same exact thing. They aren't, not in the least. if it doesn't exist, it does not factor into player freedom (the most important aspect of the rpg, the one that separates it from other kinds of games) at all, simply because it isn't there. IF it exists, even if it is rare or unusual or out of the way, it does impact player freedom, simply by virtue of its inclusion.

1. I got you confused with someone else for a moment. Sorry about the video game reference comment.

2. The above quote is true in only the most trivial and unimportant sense. Obviously the inclusion of a thing increases player freedom in the sense that the players can now choose how to interact with that thing. This would also be true of whatever else a DM might place in the forest instead of the dragon.

3. They are the exact same thing in that you engineered the game in both circumstances in order to accomodate player character level, placing you squarely in the OPs camp A, "The World Exists for the Sake of the Characters," and clearly exemplifying a "level responsive" setting. It is level responsive both to decline to include a level inappropriate dragon, and to include said dragon while giving the PCs information and options sufficient to make that dragon a plot device that they do not have to face in a level inappropriate manner.

I think that you have set this up to fail. (Not intentionally, but by the nature of being the one to define the sides of the argument.) You have not accounted for two things. One, challenge level appropriate may not be the design goal. Two, and more importantly, there are more reasons to use a dragon (insert any high-level challenge) than just to fight or sneak by. Story and plot come to mind.

These things are true, but they are not relevant to whether or not the game world is being engineered by the DM to better serve the players by ensuring that they do not wander or get led into level inappropriate encounters.

Obviously a story with dragons in it is different from a story with, I dunno, fish people.

 

[Greg K]

There is no Wish List system, no Wish List section. There is nothing about giving players exactly what they want for free (which more than one poster, including the OP, has claimed in this thread). On page 125, under the section about Awarding Treasure, there is this paragraph:

And as with PrCs in the 3.0 DMG, certain players will think they are entitled to it. Oh, wait! I have already seen this in at least one thread on the WOTC boards where players talk about going through the Adventurer's Vault and choosing magic items and how DMs should not waste players time by placing things that the PCs cannot use.

 

[The Shaman]

In so doing, though, the issue of "wish list" is obviated. it's no longer a wish list -- it's a player character goal. To which I say "Huzzah! Go and get it!"

Just don't expect it to be free and don't expect it to be easy.

*Psst!* Reynard? That was my point exactly. But don't tell anyone, 'kay? Let 'em figure it out on their own.

 

[The Shaman]

After a good bit of thought I think that the Silmarillion would have been a lot better with some Tauren Death Knights.

Or zeppelin mechas.

 

[Vegepygmy]

3. They are the exact same thing in that you engineered the game in both circumstances in order to accomodate player character level, placing you squarely in the OPs camp A, "The World Exists for the Sake of the Characters," and clearly exemplifying a "level responsive" setting. It is level responsive both to decline to include a level inappropriate dragon, and to include said dragon while giving the PCs information and options sufficient to make that dragon a plot device that they do not have to face in a level inappropriate manner.

It's not "level responsive" to include a dragon where a dragon would be, and to provide the players with information about the dragon that their characters would reasonably have, because neither of those decisions (1, placement of the dragon, and 2, availability of information about the dragon) are being made in response to the PCs' level.

 

[Celebrim]

It is true that almost without exception, PC's start off in places where survival is fairly easy. Typically, they start in some corner of civilization where level inappropriate challenges are rare. Typically, they start off as members of this civilization and thus what level inappropriate encounters are available are generally with characters that are nominally on 'the same side' as the characters, and thus not hostile. And typically, because it is a civilized area, what level inappropriate foes that are about are generally not interested in casual murder of strangers, because - this being civilized - they are afraid of running afoul of the law.

So yes, by starting the characters there, I'm engineering good odds on the character's survival and engineering it such that most encounters will be with something that low level characters could defend themselves against.

But on the other hand, if I didn't do this, it would raise a paradox. If in fact the PC's find themselves in a place where low level characters probably couldn't survive, how did they get there in the first place? Why aren't they dead? Why isn't everyone else dead? Sure, I could randomly drop them on the haunted continent of Sethia, where a horde of wraiths is an ordinary encounter and where broken epic level artifacts await as death traps to the unwary mortal and that would surely engineer their speedy demise, but there are no living inhabitants of Sethia and even the gods avoid the place. What the heck justification would I have for dropping starting characters there?

Similarly, if I have a dragon living near civilization unless it showed up exactly when the PC's arrived (which would be a rather extraordinary coincidence), if I don't have a wide zone around it where everyone knows you don't go (even if no one knows exactly why), then it raises another internal contridiction in the setting. How is it that all these people are wandering into the dark forest and dying, and no one has noticed it? Won't someone eventually learn the rule, "Don't go into the dark forest.", even if only through natural selection?

But let's suppose that I have some level inappropriate thing around that isn't well known? It's easy to imagine such a thing. Perhaps, buried in the side of a hill somewhere nearby is a hidden vault containing a demi-lich. But once again, we find that if this is a living world, that if such a vault is not known at all and thus the PC's are likely to walk into it with no warning of the hazards inside, then it must also be the case that the vault is very hard to find. If it is not hard to find, someone other than the PC's would have probably found it and hense it would be known about, and it would be well known 'Don't go near those standing stones on such and such hill'. And if it is hard to find, then the PC's are not at all likely to stumble on it by accident either.

Hense we find that it is very difficult to construct logical situations for low level characters where there would be hostile and insanely 'level inappropriate' encounters near by which a character might easily stumble into. There might be a 10th level Paladin or a garison of the King's soldiers, but neither are necessarily hostile (initially). There might be such a dangerous dragon no one dared go near, but everyone would likely know the general location of the lair. There might be well hidden and concealed dangers generally not known about, but the PC's would be generally safe from such dangers by the combination of their ignorance and the passivity of the dangers.

In other words, the fact that a starting location is 'engineered to ensure the PC's are unlikely to wander into level inappropriate encounters' is pretty much indistinguishable from randomly selecting a location where 1st level characters are generally found, for anywhere that 1st level characters are generally found it is logically unlikely that you'll wander into level inappropriate encounters. As a DM, I might be doing everything necessary to give the PC's a fair chance at survival, but the PC's survival might not necessarily be my overriding motivation - and given how I've responded thus far, may I suggest that it probably isn't.

It is therefore a very weak prejudice on a DM's part in favor of the PC's, and if anything, because it represents far and away the statistically most likely scenario, engineering anything but that situation would seem to me to be evidence of far stronger bias or at least much stronger 'rail roading' of a particular plot or story.

Now, is there bias on the part of the DM? Sure, he let's the players play characters with exceptional attributes, relatively high amounts of starting wealth, who have relatively uncommon and highly useful survival skills, and who otherwise have many advantages stacked in their favor. Also, the DM is motivated to fudge consequences in the PC's favor as much as he thinks can be swallowed, if things go badly or might go badly, simply because a TPK represents a lot of hassle and extra work for himself and possibly the end of a hitherto enjoyable story. But as tempting as this may be, the plot protection can never be absolute or too repetitive.