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~xFellWardenx~
2014-06-07, 05:02 AM
I see this kind of philosophy espoused all the time, that characters who aren't incredibly powerful by the game's standards aren't fit to be in the position of doing anything important and/or dangerous in the game world. Like it "breaks immersion" or something. I don't really get it. Especially in fields as wide and varied as "wizard" or "hacker" or especially just "important character" is it really immersion-breaking to have a couple of imperfections in the mix? Forget griping at the front-liner for not doing his job for a moment; is him not quite being as durable as his fellows, and certainly not above average, enough to invalidate him as a legitimate player character?

This isn't exactly a balance-related thing. I just don't get why people would call it unrealistic that their personal party whatever isn't the absolutely most talented in the field. Like, "what group would adventure with a guy who fills a necessary party role but isn't absolutely perfectly predisposed for it?" Um, any group that doesn't have the resources and free time to go scrutinously looking for the one person out of every village that practices a certain thing with any degree of skill, trying to find the one cream of the crop guy who isn't getting paid better by someone else, maybe?

Again, maybe I'm going about this wrong, but this is a legitimate argument I see a lot of people put up for why a given character shouldn't have some defining flaw, and if I'm missing something about the argument I'd really like it clarified. Why can't the not-naturally-gifted people have a shot at greatness without it being "unrealistic?" Why is that even unrealistic, given the likely scarcity of top-quality people who are a) of the profession you need and b) not under another person's employment?

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 05:32 AM
It depends on the world and what the flaws are. I think people want to avoid the video game problem - here, you're just some random low-level dude, have an important quest. There needs to be some reason why the PC's are the ones out doing their job and not someone else. That's not incompatible with people who aren't the best at their job, but if you're in a quest-giving environment it has to be handled carefully to not strain realism.

Broken Crown
2014-06-07, 05:52 AM
I think this is partly a result of the way characters are created. In the (very) old days of RPGs, character generation was essentially random, and you had to make do with what you got, which was generally less than what you wanted, but usually good enough (though I once rolled a character for an AD&D one-shot who didn't qualify for ANY class). When point-based systems were developed, optimization naturally became possible, and there was a corresponding pressure to build characters who were as well-suited to their roles as possible, given the resources available.

I can't speak with certainty here, but I think this trend was probably accelerated by MMOs, where the large size of the community allowed the quick dissemination of "optimal" builds, and where the relative lack of role-playing compared to table-top games meant that suitability for a designated role became the only measure of the value of a character. This attitude, in turn, probably diffused back into the table-top community.

As for how this gets interpreted as flawed characters being "unrealistic," I suppose it's unrealistic in the context of a world where people choose their own strengths and weaknesses to best match up with their chosen occupations, but it's definitely not an attitude that makes sense in a world of real people with real personal histories. If I (very hypothetically) wanted to become a boxer, I couldn't dump my intelligence to make myself stronger. (I would gain strength as a result of training, and would probably lose intelligence as a result of being repeatedly punched in the head, but that's not the same thing.) I'd be a very mediocre boxer, at best. But the real world is like that; people aren't always perfectly suited for the things they choose to do.

Spore
2014-06-07, 06:14 AM
I think this is partly a result of the way characters are created. In the (very) old days of RPGs, character generation was essentially random, and you had to make do with what you got, which was generally less than what you wanted, but usually good enough

I would love to try such a thing but I am unsure if it is possible to do with modern gamers in more than a oneshot. I mean your own talents and "attributes" are mostly random aside from mental and physical training. If one is born smart or growing up on a farm used to physical labor one is with a certain makeup of stats.

Also most importane people from history either inherited their importance or resulted from their deeds. I can really imagine a scrawny, stupid noble lucky enough to know enough secrets to being able to blackmail the most influential people to have a good standing.

Dorian Gray
2014-06-07, 06:28 AM
Part of the issue comes from the "chosen one" effect- the PCs are the only people who can solve the problem, because that's an easy way for the DM to get the players into the quest. But if the PCs are obviously less powerful than some NPCs, that breaks immersion in that they wonder why the high level NPCs can't do the job.

The same thing happens when a high level questgiver assigns a low-level party an important task. Why is the 16th level wizard asking the 4th level party to find the missing princess if the wizard could just scry her? That breaks immersion.

Thrudd
2014-06-07, 07:22 AM
Depends on what we mean by "important". If the assumption is that the PC's must be the best most powerful heroes in the world who are going to save the universe from the start of the game, then it sort of does not make sense if their abilities are barely above that of the commoner.

If the intent is to portray the rise of heroes from their humble origins, it makes complete sense to start out as low level, low power characters. Once they are among the top heroes in the world, then you can run the end of the world scenario and it will seem appropriate for the matter to be in their hands.

My philosophy is to let the players' actions determine whether or not their characters become "important". When the game starts, they are nobodies who are looking for a life of adventure, for whatever reasons. If they survive and become powerful, their importance in the world will proportionally increase, along with their notoriety. This, of course, depends on the setting greatly...it must be a world where choosing to be an adventurer is something that happens and also has the potential to be successful (albeit with extreme danger). There need to be plentiful locations for adventuring expeditions, lots of unexplored places with lost treasure and dangerous creatures. Deciding why the world is that way is the job of the DM.

It is absolutely possible to run an old-school game like this, with dice-generated characters and no optimization. You just need to select the appropriate game, an appropriate setting, and design the campaign in a manner that allows this type of play. No reason modern gamers shouldn't have fun with it, if it is done properly.

Spore
2014-06-07, 07:45 AM
The same thing happens when a high level questgiver assigns a low-level party an important task. Why is the 16th level wizard asking the 4th level party to find the missing princess if the wizard could just scry her? That breaks immersion.

It's below him. Ask a 15th level wizard with an own tower, apprentices and his own teleportation circle to get rid of those pesky Gnolls attacking the village nearby. He will hire adventurers for a fraction of the gold his least expensive equipment is worth.

Slipperychicken
2014-06-07, 08:44 AM
is it really immersion-breaking to have a couple of imperfections in the mix? Forget griping at the front-liner for not doing his job for a moment; is him not quite being as durable as his fellows, and certainly not above average, enough to invalidate him as a legitimate player character?

When the players expect each other to make their PCs to fill party roles and succeed at challenges, intentionally doing otherwise is easy to perceive as trolling or griefing. It's like entering a team game and intentionally playing against your teammates, as if you're trying to make them lose.


All the other players made their characters to fill party roles as best they can, and expect their fellows to do the same in the interest of performing well in the game. And then this jerk who was supposed to cover the front line comes in with a Warrior who is severely claustrophobic, severely agoraphobic, has 4 Con, 12 Strength, his feats in Skill Focus(Knowledge), with vows of peace and nonviolence, spent all his starting gold on ponies and firewood, and then he wants to free-ride for the whole campaign? And when you ask him to make something effective so you don't die, he just keeps whining about how you're belittling his concept. That's utterly exasperating for the other players, who at least made an effort to take their in-game responsibilities seriously.

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 09:10 AM
When the players expect each other to make their PCs to fill party roles and succeed at challenges, intentionally doing otherwise is easy to perceive as trolling or griefing. It's like entering a team game and intentionally playing against your teammates, as if you're trying to make them lose.


All the other players made their characters to fill party roles as best they can, and expect their fellows to do the same in the interest of performing well in the game. And then this jerk who was supposed to cover the front line comes in with a Warrior who is severely claustrophobic, severely agoraphobic, has 4 Con, 12 Strength, his feats in Skill Focus(Knowledge), with vows of peace and nonviolence, spent all his starting gold on ponies and firewood, and then he wants to free-ride for the whole campaign? And when you ask him to make something effective so you don't die, he just keeps whining about how you're belittling his concept. That's utterly exasperating for the other players, who at least made an effort to take their in-game responsibilities seriously.

It works both ways, honestly. On one hand you do get people who build underdeveloped characters. On the other hand you get the guy who insists on playing a high-op character with almost no backstory and all his points dumped into his one casting stat, and then gets annoyed when the other players complain because he's doing everything with magic and ignoring roleplaying unless it gets him more power. Or the dreaded, you're the new player so you have to play whatever role nobody else wanted, even if you have no interest in that role and could make a character who would complement the party quite well (especially if it's a game where that role isn't absolutely critical, and/or could be filled by an NPC).

NichG
2014-06-07, 10:24 AM
I think this is a problem with games that are a little too combat-focused, to the extent where 'being good at combat' is the only measuring stick for anyone in the setting, period. In general influence, cleverness, etc can be independent parameters from 'ability to kill things' or 'ability to cast world-changing spells' or whatever.

Take something like the Planescape setting - normally the planes are considered to be the stomping grounds for high level characters in D&D, but Planescape was designed so that very low level characters could interact with the planes and still be able to accomplish stuff. The difference is, instead of having to be able to kill anything you meet to get stuff done, you have to be able to outwit the things you meet, or just be willing to sacrifice more than the next guy and make a few good deals, or just have gotten in good with a bunch of fellow factioneers so you have some clout behind you regardless of character level.

The Factol of the Guvners is an extreme case of this - he's listed as a 0th level character with an NPC class, 6hp, and a small handful of unique tricks and get-out-of-jail free cards to deal with assassins and the like.

The total inventory of factols has 1 Lv20, 4 Lv19, 1 Lv16, 1 Lv15, 1 Lv14*, 1 Lv13**, 1 Lv11, 2 Lv9, 2 Lv8, 2 Lv6*, 1 Lv0. So all across the board really - some people who are just really powerful and some people who are likely much weaker than other people in their faction but have more dedication, drive, etc to the faction ideal.

*: Free League, multiple 'factols'
**: Anarchists, no official factol but has a de-facto factol.

Essentially Power = Importance is what happens when you have a world that is governed by a single statistic or number. Once you have more things than one that matter, then there are lots of different ways for people to be important.

Red Fel
2014-06-07, 11:30 AM
I see this kind of philosophy espoused all the time, that characters who aren't incredibly powerful by the game's standards aren't fit to be in the position of doing anything important and/or dangerous in the game world. Like it "breaks immersion" or something. I don't really get it. Especially in fields as wide and varied as "wizard" or "hacker" or especially just "important character" is it really immersion-breaking to have a couple of imperfections in the mix? Forget griping at the front-liner for not doing his job for a moment; is him not quite being as durable as his fellows, and certainly not above average, enough to invalidate him as a legitimate player character?

This isn't exactly a balance-related thing. I just don't get why people would call it unrealistic that their personal party whatever isn't the absolutely most talented in the field. Like, "what group would adventure with a guy who fills a necessary party role but isn't absolutely perfectly predisposed for it?" Um, any group that doesn't have the resources and free time to go scrutinously looking for the one person out of every village that practices a certain thing with any degree of skill, trying to find the one cream of the crop guy who isn't getting paid better by someone else, maybe?

Again, maybe I'm going about this wrong, but this is a legitimate argument I see a lot of people put up for why a given character shouldn't have some defining flaw, and if I'm missing something about the argument I'd really like it clarified. Why can't the not-naturally-gifted people have a shot at greatness without it being "unrealistic?" Why is that even unrealistic, given the likely scarcity of top-quality people who are a) of the profession you need and b) not under another person's employment?

I'll be honest, this sounds like a strawman argument. If I understand you correctly, you're expressing dissatisfaction with the philosophy that, for a character to be "important," he has to be flawless, a paragon, a perfect example of his craft. I don't see that philosophy espoused often, at least not by people who write good stories or characters. Great characters are defined just as much by their flaws as by their merits. Achilles had his tendon. Dresden has his stupid sense of right and wrong. Characters are made great by what they have to overcome to achieve their goals, not by being able to do so unconditionally.

Hence why it reads like a strawman argument. It sounds like you're starting with "I hear people say [something people generally don't say], you don't believe that, do you?" Like I said, I don't generally hear people say that only a perfectly-defined character can be plot-important.

That said, in tabletop games - particularly ones where combat is king (looking at you, D&D) - a character's abilities define his utility. A character who is good at nothing may have all the interesting flaws and quirks in the world, but he will be rendered unimportant simply by his inability to accomplish anything. Even so, I don't believe that characters, in practice, need to be ultra-optimized. A character who is good at his role but has a few quirks is, in my mind, better than a character who is flawless at his role but lacks any depth beyond it.

Waar
2014-06-07, 12:12 PM
I see this kind of philosophy espoused all the time

Care to elaborate?, Is it that the people in charge do not have much personal power, or is it that the they have a lot of personal power but delegate to people with less power?

Pesonally I'm of the opinion that skills/Powers/whatever that isn't used for the position is a nice bonus, but won't realy help with geting you into a more important spot. (if your mad skills in X won't help you do Y, why would your skill at X matter for getting a job to do Y?)

jedipotter
2014-06-07, 12:29 PM
I see this kind of philosophy espoused all the time, that characters who aren't incredibly powerful by the game's standards aren't fit to be in the position of doing anything important and/or dangerous in the game world.


Some people have the world view that only the ''chosen ones''....the ''special snowflakes'' can do anything, and everyone else is useless and should just be quiet and sit down. D&D is biased around the idea that the whole world is near-useless normal NPC people. Only the PC's are special. Only the PC's can handle any trouble that comes along. It is a not so clever way to motivate the PC's, ''only you can fight the evil monsters''. Eberbbon is the poster child for this type of thinking.

And D&D is a combat adventure game. So powerful characters can do lots of combat stuff, but not so much anything else. Konrt the fighter can slay a dragon, but Oren is the king.....so who has more ''power''? Konrt could kill the king, does that make him more powerful? The king rules the kingdom, something Konrt could never do even if he tried, does that make the king more powerful? How to you rate ''power''?

SiuiS
2014-06-07, 12:53 PM
All governmental power boils down, eventually, to who has the biggest stick. Or who's friend has the biggest stick. Or who is most willing to use their stick.

Gaming removes is from consequence. It allows us to use problem solving solutions we could not in reality. This sinks in over the years and we have to wonder, logically, if the king is corrupt or the baron is taxing everyone too much or the mayor is selling people to the Orc legions for slavery and food, A) why didn't the peasants all fight back? Someone should have beaten these bad guys, and B) why don't you just kill them? Why do you play politics with the guy no one likes. No one likes him, just kill him!

Eventually, this means that surviving jerks must be personally potent.



It also means that eventually, we will ignore the most basic premises of relationships.

NichG
2014-06-07, 01:05 PM
All governmental power boils down, eventually, to who has the biggest stick. Or who's friend has the biggest stick. Or who is most willing to use their stick.

Gaming removes is from consequence. It allows us to use problem solving solutions we could not in reality. This sinks in over the years and we have to wonder, logically, if the king is corrupt or the baron is taxing everyone too much or the mayor is selling people to the Orc legions for slavery and food, A) why didn't the peasants all fight back? Someone should have beaten these bad guys, and B) why don't you just kill them? Why do you play politics with the guy no one likes. No one likes him, just kill him!

Eventually, this means that surviving jerks must be personally potent.

It also means that eventually, we will ignore the most basic premises of relationships.

This I think is a DM flaw more than anything else, though it may be endemic to the game by now. Its actually fairly hard to set up realistic political situations, where things have been all frozen out by a network of complex contingencies, alliances, and orders that would make a paranoid wizard jealous.

In general I think that if you've designed a realistic political system, then it means that going and assassinating the head of government will actually tend to make things far worse for everyone, rather than instantly making things get better. That sort of ratchet is how that guy manages to keep power - he's awful, but the immediate consequences of him not being there or being replaced are so much worse than no one wants to actually remove or replace him. If the adventurers can just step in over the corpse of the old king and create a utopia (or even a stable society) then its more of a caricature of government than anything else - its set up to fail.

A simple example might be something like a feudal system where the only reason the government doesn't break down into 100 tiny fiefdoms is a network of alliances, oaths, and blood relations that mutually compel everyone to follow the hierarchy of the overall kingdom. If you assassinate the evil king, now suddenly all of those feudal lords have no reason to obey centralized orders and many of them who were only kept in check by the threat of centralized response immediately start raiding and pillaging their neighbors, and it turns out that the chaos unleashed by that is a hundred times worse than the horrible things the evil king did.

But in games, it seems like its usually played the other way around. Targeting the head of state/head of the cult/BBEG is basically standard operating procedure.

Arbane
2014-06-07, 05:03 PM
I see this kind of philosophy espoused all the time, that characters who aren't incredibly powerful by the game's standards aren't fit to be in the position of doing anything important and/or dangerous in the game world.

"What level was Genghis Khan?"

SiuiS
2014-06-07, 05:16 PM
"What level was Genghis Khan?"

sixth. He had leadership and the Battle skill, that's all you need.

Mr Beer
2014-06-07, 05:35 PM
If players wanted to have real power, they might take high Charisma, a bunch of social skills, noble backgrounds and proceed to play politics for a few years of game time. Actual power doesn't generally derive from the ability to personally wreck anyone you want - compare Mike Tyson to say Bill Clinton for a couple of people at their power zeniths around the same time. Tyson was probably higher "level" than Clinton, in that he could have taken on a whole room full of Clintons without breaking a sweat, but that would never happen since the Secret Service would simply shoot him full of holes while Clinton walked away to go and do something important.

A counter argument is that actual power in D&D does to seem to come from being the maximum badass, so it may come down to the kind of assumptions you make about your game world.

NichG
2014-06-07, 05:37 PM
"What level was Genghis Khan?"

Everything that Genghis Khan historically accomplished could be done by a 1st level character. You don't actually need the Leadership feat to run an army, it just guarantees you one even if you had no other way of obtaining one.

sktarq
2014-06-07, 05:46 PM
Well it is matter of saying "are the PC's the best able to do the job"? running a bit amok. So if you plan on doing something "important" you want highly skilled (and thus high power) people and if the PC's are not that then asking why they are the ones doing so is a valid question....so give them an answer. They happened to be in the right place, a patron want things low key or the few other higher power NPC's are spoken for, or they just don't like each other. There are plenty of reasons and people are pretty happy to accept whatever the DM throws at them. But unless there is an answer the question of "why are we doing all this world shaking stuff when there are more qualified people around?" is a fair one.

Slipperychicken
2014-06-07, 05:59 PM
We could go the OSR/retroclone way and say that important people are automatically higher level. The king of a large kingdom, for example, would typically be at least level 9, even if his ability scores would normally make him weak. Similarly, a guard captain might be level 4, while most of his subordinates are levels 0-3. This also gives a good reason for nobles (and people of similar status) to be awesome and fight battles instead of hanging out in their throne rooms all day.

sktarq
2014-06-07, 06:34 PM
We could go the OSR/retroclone way and say that important people are automatically higher level. The king of a large kingdom, for example, would typically be at least level 9, even if his ability scores would normally make him weak. .....
yeah I've never liked that since if the noble/king got his position by birth why would he be any more likely than joe blogs to be a high level? and what about the classic stories of inept kings being run by puppets, or an unready king, the logic doesn't seem there. Also that guard captain-why would he be higher level? THe skills that would get him promoted to captain would almost all be social ones. Management stuff and critical thinking not being able to swing a sword better. And while he would keep getting better at the investigation and social skills as say an investigator or bureaucrat his sword arm would get out of practice not better. So why would the guard captain be better at spot checks and stabby stabby again?

SiuiS
2014-06-07, 07:47 PM
Everything that Genghis Khan historically accomplished could be done by a 1st level character. You don't actually need the Leadership feat to run an army, it just guarantees you one even if you had no other way of obtaining one.

Yeah. Leadership is insurance. An army is just a bunch of retainers.

Slipperychicken
2014-06-07, 07:53 PM
yeah I've never liked that since if the noble/king got his position by birth why would he be any more likely than joe blogs to be a high level? and what about the classic stories of inept kings being run by puppets, or an unready king, the logic doesn't seem there. Also that guard captain-why would he be higher level? THe skills that would get him promoted to captain would almost all be social ones. Management stuff and critical thinking not being able to swing a sword better. And while he would keep getting better at the investigation and social skills as say an investigator or bureaucrat his sword arm would get out of practice not better. So why would the guard captain be better at spot checks and stabby stabby again?

I can't say I like the logic very much myself, but it lends itself well to such a fantasy universe as dnd emulates, where Joe Average can become a conquering hero after a few dungeon crawls, and pretty much everything breaks down if you scrutinize it too closely.

WarKitty
2014-06-07, 10:25 PM
There's also of course the old balance your PC to the party deal. I think a lot of complaints about this type have more to do with one person making a character that's not enough to keep up with the rest of the party - and no party wants to adventure with someone who's not contributing. Stormwind does exist.

Knaight
2014-06-07, 10:50 PM
This sinks in over the years and we have to wonder, logically, if the king is corrupt or the baron is taxing everyone too much or the mayor is selling people to the Orc legions for slavery and food, A) why didn't the peasants all fight back? Someone should have beaten these bad guys, and B) why don't you just kill them? Why do you play politics with the guy no one likes. No one likes him, just kill him!

Eventually, this means that surviving jerks must be personally potent.

Not really? Say there's a guy with 6 minions - to keep this reasonably simple, though the principles scale up. All six hate them. But, if any one of the 6 go, that puts the other 5 in a bad situation - they can try to rebel as well, which leaves them outnumbered 4 to 2, or they can bide their time to deal for things later. This also prevents any of the six from likely acting up in the first place.

Endarire
2014-06-07, 11:40 PM
The notion of PCs being low level/low power yet being assigned something important to do can work, depending on the world.

It depends on the notion that the world in general is low level/low power. An E6 game (or a game where, initially, a level 6 character is basically a paragaon and there exist perhaps 10 of them in the world) works best for this sort of thing.

The world needs to adapt to PCs rising in power by having the world rise in power, too, but likely at a much slower rate. If the PCs start at level 1 and the paragaons are level 6, then by the time the group reaches level 6 (if ever), the paragaons of this world should be slightly higher level - probably level 7-8, and very probably level 10 at most. At this point, you can introduce a new world the party to the world of the planes - the multiverse, effectively - and give them tasks more suited to their level without concerning yourself about the Turnip Economy and the Gold Economy and the Wish Economy in the same world.

(Note to designers: A level 15 D&D character in 3.5 typically has very little or no reason to care about a farming village. We're just past that at this point.)

Ahem. You're gonna need a reason why the multiverse hasn't invaded Home Plane by this point. Is Home Plane sealed off from the rest of the cosmos? Is there a divine contract preventing outside interference, Prime Directive style? I assume you want your campaign to be able to continue in places where creatures are more powerful - using Outsiders like Angels and Demons and Devils and Deities, Elementals, and so on - thus, the explanation that "the other planes are too weak to invade" is probably not valid. Is there some sort of planar incompatability that prevents true outsiders or beings of a certain power from entering Home Plane? Though it's assumed a non-issue in standard D&D 3.5, what if top Demons and Devils haven't invaded Home Plane because they're bound to their own plane (or extraplanar places outside Home Plane), or they'd be greatly damaged or weakened outside of their own plane or in Home Plane? This could permit Planetouched and other minor Outsiders like Neraph to exist on Home Plane and throughout the multiverse, but things like Balors and Solars simply couldn't exist on Home Plane, or could only exist for short periods with the appropriate magic, like gate. (Summons, like from summon monster IX, would still function as normal. Summoned creatures are short-term enough and basically a photocopy of the real creature - 'real enough' but not fully there.)

If you do want to have your party return to Home Plane, why? How? What's there for them? Have they become so attuned to the planes that they simply belong there and not Home Plane? Does their arrival herald the destruction of Home Plane? Do the planar travelers need to merge another plane with Home Plane to return? If they do, what are the results?

These were my considerations when making The Metaphysical Revolution (http://campbellgrege.com/work-listing/the-metaphysical-revolution-dd-3-5-module/). This module is only level 1-3 and covers the 'let's get to the interesting parts of the adventure where the PCs are important and doing important things from level 1' approach, in part because I was running a round-robin GMship and I was first. I only had one chance to get the party hooked and interested, and I had to plan for events for my next rounds at levels 9ish and 17ish. I was also tired of PCs being generally unimportant until level 5-6 when they got level 3 spells and learned to Wild Shape. If the PCs are unimportant until they're powerful, just skip those portions and get to the good stuff.

(The NPCs in The Metaphysical Revolution had their own reasons for employing the PCs and letting general newcomers and no-names work on this important mission. They were supervised throughout this journey by a high-ranking member of their trade house, Trinden Felsad, who'd prefer this mission's true importance remain a secret until after it was done. Trinden, the NPC, escorted the PCs perhaps as much as the PCs escorted him, and he had the clout to persuade people into listening for the sake of their wallets and continued survival. Additionally, the party was secretly considered disposable.)

Additionally, most of my players were veterans who'd played under me for 3-5 years. They could come to me for build advice, and they knew it was my goal to help them succeed, give them the character and play experience they wanted (if not necessarily asked for), and challenge them along the way.

This was my solution.

I3igAl
2014-06-08, 09:31 AM
Everything that Genghis Khan historically accomplished could be done by a 1st level character. You don't actually need the Leadership feat to run an army, it just guarantees you one even if you had no other way of obtaining one.

Gengis Khan only works as long as there aren't any lvl5+ casters around. With higher mobility and ways of observing the exact location of his horde etc. of his horde would have made his empire impossible.
Another problem is the skill system being tied to levels too. What if some guy with much higher diplomacy comes along? Could he slowly shift the power in the court given some time? Shure he just leeds to talk everyone into helping him murder the king.


IMO Importance for low powered characters is possible as long as there aren't enough high levels to do the job. Most powerful wizards could be villains etc.

NichG
2014-06-08, 11:25 AM
Gengis Khan only works as long as there aren't any lvl5+ casters around. With higher mobility and ways of observing the exact location of his horde etc. of his horde would have made his empire impossible.

The problem here is the assumption that Genghis Khan personally would have to solve every problem faced by his army. But thats what the army is for! In D&D land, this would just mean having higher level characters (casters) under his command.



Another problem is the skill system being tied to levels too. What if some guy with much higher diplomacy comes along? Could he slowly shift the power in the court given some time? Shure he just leeds to talk everyone into helping him murder the king.

Again, this is the hallmark of the DM setting up a highly unrealistic political system. In a realistic system, murdering the king doesn't actually make you the king - it just causes chaos that in general makes the kingdom less worth having even if you could, since half of its components are going to collapse, turn on eachother, or go independent.

Similarly, being able to make allies with individuals using Diplomacy is a powerful tool for intrigue, but in a realistic system it won't be enough on its own to give you all the power. When things like rulership are strictly tied to bloodlines and familial pacts, at best this lets you manipulate the country into taking actions on your behalf (e.g. you can be the power behind the throne), but you're going to have problems doing it very openly, which means that the public face of the rulership could very well still be quite low level.

(also, being higher level doesn't actually provide extra defense against Diplomacy being used against you...)

Jay R
2014-06-08, 11:53 AM
The same thing happens when a high level questgiver assigns a low-level party an important task. Why is the 16th level wizard asking the 4th level party to find the missing princess if the wizard could just scry her? That breaks immersion.

I have had good success with the following:

The characters are hired by a Great White Wizard to sneak into the Black Mage’s castle to steal the Ruby of Power in his throne that is the source of his power. After they go through the traps, monsters and other dangers outside, they have to make their way through the guards and castle traps, finally arriving at the throne room, to find the Great White Wizard calmly sitting and holding the ruby.

PC: “If you were coming here, why did you hire us?”
GWW: “To take all the risks, of course. Once the Black Mage’s full attention was bent on killing you, I had no trouble slipping in.”
PC: “Why didn’t you at least tell us?”
GWW: “Because the Black Mage can read lower-level minds. Why do you think you wound up facing every minion he had?”

Loxagn
2014-06-08, 03:19 PM
'Important' is subjective. It may seem cruel, but the fact of the matter is that, excluding extenuating circumstances, a first-level character is not going to be able to muster the force necessary to, say, prevent the Daelkyr from completing a ritual that will make the Prime Material coterminous with Xoriat, and a twentieth-level character is just not going to be terribly concerned with the band of slavers that have overrun the town of River's End.

The slavers are dragging the populace away into the night, kicking and screaming. With no workers, food is quickly becoming scarce as the young, ill, and elderly are unable to provide for themselves. If this goes on for much longer, River's End will be a ghost town and the slavers will move on to bleed another settlement dry. They need to be stopped.

The daelkyr are trying to bring the horrors of Xoriat to the Eberron, and if they succeed aberrations will surge forth and blanket the land, killing (or worse, mutating) everything living until there is nothing left but a plane filled with madness and death. They need to be stopped.

Both of these are events that could be considered 'important' from the correct point of view. But 'appropriate encounter level' is a thing, and that actually has nothing to do with CR in this instance.

Can low-level PC's do things that are important? Absolutely; nobody says that your experience with first level adventuring has to be limited to 'help grandma smithers deliver a pie'. But if you're trying to save the multiverse when your proudest accomplishment is having recently learned to cast Glitterdust, you're going to have a bad time.

Knaight
2014-06-08, 03:39 PM
'Important' is subjective. It may seem cruel, but the fact of the matter is that, excluding extenuating circumstances, a first-level character is not going to be able to muster the force necessary to, say, prevent the Daelkyr from completing a ritual that will make the Prime Material coterminous with Xoriat, and a twentieth-level character is just not going to be terribly concerned with the band of slavers that have overrun the town of River's End.

This is an important note. It's very possible for whatever the characters are doing to be important to someone. Even if it isn't, there are plenty of very good stories wherein the characters don't do anything that important to anyone (possibly including themselves), and a game that focuses on these is fine. Nobody does anything important in Fiasco - it's still a fun game.

As for being involved in saving the world, it's been done. I'd consider more localized games which never get that powerful a lot more fun.

erikun
2014-06-08, 09:26 PM
I think that part of the reason for this attitude is, in part, thanks to D&D3e. I realize that the opinion existed long before D&D3e was around, but a lot of people got into RPGs through that system and they are only familiar with related systems. D&D3e is very focused on individual character power and being able to overcome challenges, and so it probably isn't too surprising that the players are primarily interested in what a character in the party can accomplish.

Compare this to even AD&D, where characters rarely survive alone outside very high levels and where simply having another character in the party is generally a very good thing.



'Important' is subjective. It may seem cruel, but the fact of the matter is that, excluding extenuating circumstances, a first-level character is not going to be able to muster the force necessary to, say, prevent the Daelkyr from completing a ritual that will make the Prime Material coterminous with Xoriat, and a twentieth-level character is just not going to be terribly concerned with the band of slavers that have overrun the town of River's End.
That depends a lot on what a Daelkyr is and how it's completing the ritual. If it's a first level goblin and completing the ritual requires the sacrifice of X innocents at Y location at time Z, then I'd say that a first level party actually does have a fairly good chance of preventing it. Even if the party can't fight it directly, they'd still have plenty of chances to do something important in that case.

If a Daelkyr is some sort of deity with access to all wizard spells and 5000 HP, and simply requires meditating for three days to complete the ritual, then no. The first level party cannot do anything meaningful against it. In that case, though, it's mostly a result of throwing large numbers at the party to make the situation impossible, as opposed to some good reason why a "low level party" should be unable to accomplish it. Yes, I realize that D&D encourages this. No, it isn't a good reason.

NichG
2014-06-08, 09:29 PM
I'm reminded vaguely of how Lolth had 66hp in older editions of D&D...

Loxagn
2014-06-08, 10:03 PM
Daelkyr are powerful outsiders from Xoriat, the plane of madness. As far as I know, they're exclusive to Eberron, but they're still high-level threats and have some pretty nasty abilities to back it up. Not quite on par with a deity, but I'm fairly certain that one or two could reasonably expect to challenge a level 17+ party. If working in a larger group, they could even be significantly more of a threat.

And I apologize - I did not mean to imply that it was impossible. But I do believe that it would be unfair to take a group of characters fresh out of chargen and immediately pit them against elder evils. Their actions should always have impact because the game is, after all, about fun, and it's not terribly fun to look around and see that you're having zero effect on things. I used D&D as an example simply because D&D is the most commonly-known. Examples like that can be easily adapted.

For instance, a Shadowrunning team that just got themselves started with 400BP, no Karma earned yet, would have no business, say, robbing an Aztechnology arms depot. They'd be welcome to try, but I would not ever expect them to succeed barring absolutely extraordinary luck. Similarly, the group that's been long-running and has earned themselves triple digit karma rewards probably isn't going to be interested in collecting debts from a delinquent bar owner.

Grod_The_Giant
2014-06-08, 11:37 PM
Different strokes for different folks. Some people want to play Big Damn Heroes, where paragon wizards wrestle archdemons for the fate of the multiverse. Others want to play Gritty Normals, where regular guys fight slavers using cunning and luck. There's nothing wrong with either style of game, or either type of player. The only problem comes in when some guys in the group want to play Big Damn Heroes and others want to play Gritty Normals, and both plan accordingly without consulting the other. Mismatched expectations.

veti
2014-06-08, 11:45 PM
'Important' is subjective. It may seem cruel, but the fact of the matter is that, excluding extenuating circumstances, a first-level character is not going to be able to muster the force necessary to, say, prevent the Daelkyr from completing a ritual that will make the Prime Material coterminous with Xoriat, and a twentieth-level character is just not going to be terribly concerned with the band of slavers that have overrun the town of River's End.

I agree with this. I, for one, don't want to be saving the world, my first day on the job. That's a lot of responsibility for someone who doesn't even know what their job is, yet.

I've been in campaigns where the DM starts out from the beginning with the epic world-changing-quest schtick, and it just feels - overwhelming. I mean, there are two ways it can go: either I, with my 8 HP and 4 ranks in Hide can volunteer to smuggle the Ring into Mordor and up the slopes of Mt Doom - which stretches plausibility beyond breaking point, for me - or I can be tasked with some apparently trivial delivery job that just happens to be crucial to the fate of the world - which makes me feel railroaded (what if I don't want to deliver your stupid McGuffin, eh? - or what if I fall prey to a random encounter with a pickpocket? - it's just too much responsibility, too soon).

Give me a chance to do something that makes a difference, yes. But something local and manageable in scope, where the price of failure isn't "and now we're all doomed".

Edit: unless we're playing Call of Cthulhu, of course. Then "horribly out of one's depth" is basically printed on the character sheet.

QuidEst
2014-06-11, 12:39 AM
Well, I don't think importance is always necessary. My character can be a self-centered coward who is just trying to survive as high-level stuff is going on around him, nearly killing him. Heck, I put a CR 10 monster in his backstory nearly killing him if it weren't for a lucky save.

Importance is an intangible quality, and it's the GMs job to create and convey it. Maybe the PCs are the only ones with a reason to care about something. It might be their own skins, a loved one, or something of hidden value that they're too greedy to let anybody else know about. Maybe the PCs are the only ones able to see beyond the veil and metagame. Maybe the bar crawl of the first level dwarven party has been interrupted by something minor like a war. Maybe they accidentally prevented an overly sensitive ritual from completing, and have been thrust into the position of heroes and need to maintain their reputation with guile.

With respect to unoptimized characters, I think there's a fair amount of room for that. Heck, if a wizard isn't fully optimized, he's just not stealing the show. If a bard is unoptimized, that inspiration is still helping everybody else. So long as they contribute on a level comparable to the party, things are fine. I think one of the problems is that if everybody else is optimizing, there's a lot of pressure to do so as well, so it works best if the whole party is agreeing to play to a similar level.

Welp, that's my rambling out of the way.