PDA

View Full Version : high level world or low level world: pros and cons



King of Nowhere
2017-09-07, 02:50 PM
I started thinking at this after finding out that many people dislike the forgotten realms because there are so many high level npcs around. So many organizations all led by suuperpowerful people, so that you end up wondering why is your mid-low level party even needed in the first place. Yes, having a world with many high level people can make the party feel redundant, as well as making players wonder why not every problem in that world is solved with magic.

On the other hand, a low level world is just as bad. You have this superpowerful party of heroes who can do basically whatever they want without anybody being capable to stopping them, and they are called to solve all manners of problems, and you start to wonder why nobody in that campaign world is capable of finding his own butt using both hands (Notice: I'm not counting the case of a world where also the party is restricted to low levels; what I am comparing is a world with many npc on a power level at least equivalent to what the party will ever achieve, to a world where nobody is as powerful as the party.). You also wonder how can a world so low in power still exist against all the denizens of the various monster manuals and all the apocalipse triggers that only the players can stop. And what exactly is so special about the party that they are the only ones capable of rising to a very high level. Furthermore, the party must do everything by themselves because nobody else can; want a powerful magic item? you have to craft it yourself. Want a scroll? you must scribe it yourself.

Of course many would look for the middle way as the best answer, but it is not really the case, because there is no satisfying middle way. If you decide that in every nation there are a couple 15+adventurers, and that every major god has a cleric capable of 9th level spells, you are already looking at a couple dozens level 17+ clerics and several hundreds 15+ other people, which definitely make it a high level world. I mean, look at how big the world is, there are hundreds of nations. And once people become very powerful, they can teleport, so distance is not an issue. On the other hand, if you assume that most nations don't even have anyone above 15th level, then it begs the question of how can those nations survive without their rulers being overthrown by powerful adventurers on a regular base.


So I'd like to hear your thoughts on what is the appropriate amount of high level npcs to make a campaign world consistent and believable without falling into any of the problems mentioned above.


Personally I went with a fairly high level world (about 500 adventurers above level 17), but I depicted a world of conflicting nations, where political intrigue fuels most of the quests. And while the total count of high level people is high, individual nations only have a handful of loial adventurers, so a 10th level party may not be very important in the great scheme of things, but it may still be what a lot of people are relying on. doomsday scenarios are unlikely, as the world has definitely enough firepower to deal with those when they arise - although I am saving a few of those to throw at the players when they'll be higher levels. but unless a huge world-ending threat unifies everyone on the planet, most high level people are busy sabotagin each other, or doing research for vague long terms goals. Yes, the players lose the feeling of "we're the only ones who can save the world now", and I think some won't like the idea that while you may be the single most powerful party in the world, if you make enough trouble and several nations decide to poll all their loial high level adventurers, plus a few hired freelancers, at you, there is now way the party can fight them on their own. But it is at least a consistent world where it is clear how it got into the actual situation and how the actual situation could be stable; it explains why the world wasn't destroied ages ago, why you can't just cast dominate person on the king and have him do everything you like, and why adventurers can still be useful despite all. My players are liking it well enough

JBPuffin
2017-09-07, 03:09 PM
I think this varies so much with genre and system, it's not something you can quantify so easily. A game like Call of Cthulhu automatically has high-level endgame bosses, but in the interim could be just a bunch of cultists/mundane humans with no particular power. On the other hand, Exalted is filled to the brim with hyper-powered individuals because of the source material and lore, and the players are part of that contingent from the get-go.

DnD campaigns are far more setting-dependent; Dark Sun has a lot of dangerous things, but aside from the Dragon-Kings and their top assistants, most NPCs aren't so high level; Forgotten Realms, on the other hand... for me, it doesn't matter, but I've been spoiled with awesome DMs who focus in on the problems we're tackling and don't shove random NPCs' power levels in our faces just for demonstrative purposes. The major thing is making sure there's room for the PCs to be the protagonists rather than just more chess pieces on the board. Accomplish that, and the world around them's NPC power level is more or less a non-issue.

I think you're actually doing the above in your game, even if by accident: sure, the players aren't dealing with every threat, but there is a place for them in the ecosystem and goals for them to accomplish. Are you in danger of chessboard syndrome? Yes, but if they aren't mentioning it, you haven't acquired it yet. Props to you for that.

Tinkerer
2017-09-07, 03:27 PM
My first instinct is to play a different system :smallbiggrin:

Seriously though this is one of those problems that mainly tends to pop up in D&D, particularly 3.X. And when it does it's definitely an ugly one no doubt about it. One thing I tend to do to try and mitigate it is to have everyone be a drama queen. I affectionately call this one the World of Chaos approach. Soothsayers are always bellyaching about the end of the world, every complaint that a small town has to the kingdom says that the consequences will be dire if they are ignored etc... It definitely helps that diviners in most of these worlds tend to be a little off in the head. Completely flood the information network so that the authorities don't know where to look. Any "End of the World" plot line will most likely be one with a quick end so that they wouldn't have time to react.

Another one that I use is the World of Smegheads (Originally a different sort of s-head). This is similar to One Punch Man or any number of other works of fiction where the elite simply do not care. The world is getting by just fine as it is and if the unspeakable happens then any level 15+ character probably has a way to an alternate plane. Expect to see a lot of crooked cops and politicians in this world. Sure there might be the occasional high level true hero. Feel free to kill them horribly in order to show the villains power. Any heroic character actually wanting to help is probably of a lower level than the party.

Then there are things like the Harry Potter method where the party are the only ones destined to do something so most people don't try (although that one is a little cliche). Or the Constant Invasion method where it doesn't matter that there are other hero's because the world is just in that much danger (although that can start to make the parties accomplishments seem insignificant). Or the Heroic Loners where high level NPCs just don't like each other and very rarely work together. Probably my favourite is by trying my hardest to drive home to consequences of their actions. If they are mid-low they may not have saved the kingdom, but they saved that little girl. And some days... that's enough.

Okay my actual favourite method is to use a system without that level of power-scaling but I think it was obvious that wasn't on the table here.

Edit: I just realized I never answered the question I just gave what I use to get around it. For starters I don't break down hero's/kingdom as that is extremely variable. I'd say I probably have between 100 and 500 high level people for any of the above approaches but of those 75% are far too busy leading armies or kingdoms or researching in a dark tower somewhere to take much interest in the world outside of their immediate scope.

Tanarii
2017-09-07, 04:03 PM
How often do your players spend table time on things that'd be a decent challenge to level 2-3 characters, when they are level 15? Or do they tend to just ignore them, or even assume they don't even exist any more (out of sight out of mind)? Send Henchmen to deal with them, in older editions? Use lower level PCs on them, either simultaneously with the current adventure-arc "campaign", or in the next one?

Even in a true multi-party sandbox / west marches campaign, players tend to go do things that match their capabilities. Same in MMOs, very few people intentionally do low level stuff. Every once in a while in these kinds of TRPGs/CRPGs people will attempt to power-level lower level characters with higher levels ones, but as a general rule they go do things that are a challenge.

BWR
2017-09-07, 05:34 PM
I run Mystara so there are high level folks everywhere. The empire of Alphatia (a small continent and a bit more), for starters, has a council of 1000 36th level magic-users (max level). That's not all the 36th level MUs in the country either. Many are probably on drugs.
The country of Glantri has a ton more powerful casters and is run by a literal god who is quietly promoting the study of magical nuclear radiation that is slowly sucking the magic out of the world. They are mostly concerned with political powerplays and intrigues than being holed up in a demiplane pissing their pants at the thought of going outside. They are more Paranoia than paranoid.
There are a ton of retired adventurers of varying levels in towns and villages. Technically there should be enough power floating around that PCs never need to do anything. Yet these aren't a problem for groups with sensible GMs.

The basic idea is that there will always be something for people of any level to do because the world simply works that way. Why don't more powerful people solve it? Some powerful people are retired and feel they've done their bit and it's the young-uns' turn. Many are simply self-absorbed and aren't paying attention when things go bad, leaving more adventurous people to do the job Most importantly, many have better things to do. a 15th level person isn't going to bother with base goblins in the forest because someone else can do that. Superman doesn't write parking tickets and Batman doesn't go after overdue library books. Lots of the higher level characters have positions of responsibility taking much of their time.

For instance
One of the paladins in my group is running her own domain and is busy with:
- trying to make a truly multicultural society with humans, elvs, halflings, dwarves, goblins, gnolls, orcs and ogres (it takes a lot of work to get these to try to talk without killing each other)
- playing Diplomacy with her neighbors, one of which hates all divine characters
- stopping an invasion of vampires backed by said divine-hating country
- rescuing her kidnapped capital city from the sun
- going on interdimensional time traveling odysseys and foiling the plots of evil gods
- rescuing an ancient elven homeland from a 1000 year old curse and getting it up and running again
- helping allied rulers withstand invasions from powerful enemies
- stopping a 200 meter tall steammech from tearing up her country
- trying to become a god (which is more work than it sounds)

The rest of the party has similarly engrossing concerns. When a bunch of bandits plague the roads they are usually too busy to take a break and handle things. That's why low-level adventurers are often hired to go out and take care of minor issues even if the ruler is perfectly capable of fixing things on their own.

And things work out just fine.

The Fury
2017-09-08, 12:58 AM
Another one that I use is the World of Smegheads (Originally a different sort of s-head). This is similar to One Punch Man or any number of other works of fiction where the elite simply do not care. The world is getting by just fine as it is and if the unspeakable happens then any level 15+ character probably has a way to an alternate plane. Expect to see a lot of crooked cops and politicians in this world. Sure there might be the occasional high level true hero. Feel free to kill them horribly in order to show the villains power. Any heroic character actually wanting to help is probably of a lower level than the party.


I saw a DM apply a variation on this. The high-level super characters, many of whom were former player characters, weren't allowed to get involved in matters of cosmic consequence. As in the gods would come down and punch them in the guts if they tried. So retirement at 15th level was required of virtually all adventurers, sometimes earlier if the DM deemed a character too powerful. (I think Dragonlance has some similar rule? I'm not sure.)

While I have some issues with this, there are some potentially interesting implications here, like how high level quest-givers hire lower level adventurers because this is the only way they're allowed to affect the world anymore. I say "potentially" because that sort of angle was never really explored in that DM's games as far as I know. The average quest-giver was usually a smegheaded wizard that seemed to just enjoy bossing folks around and nuking the party if they got too uppity.

Mechalich
2017-09-08, 01:08 AM
A high-level world works if the party is playing high-level characters and you explicitly acknowledge that everyone below you ranges in utility from minions to cannon fodder and otherwise doesn't count. There is a distinct upper tier of decision makers and the PCs are part of it. Alternatively, the PCs are not part of it, will never be part of it, and are adventuring in the shadows of greater powers because those are the stories you wish to tell. This is actually quite common, for example any story set in, say, the modern United States where the players have less influence than a Senator, is of this nature.

A low-level world works if the various threats and issues are newly arisen. So you can't have the collective contents of the monster manuals just sitting around, they have to have just come out of hibernation/invaded from another plane/been unleashed by divine wrath/etc. That way the PCs emerge as the chosen heroes to confront an emergent problem.

Darth Ultron
2017-09-08, 07:53 AM
Well, a big part of this is you have to separate the ''game world'' from a more ''realistic like world''. A game world just has things and monsters and other stuff, and your not really meant to think about it. In a game world a player can say ''my character sleeps on the floor and eats just bread and drinks water'' and ''does nothing by make stuff''. In a better world, characters have to ''live real lives''. And on top of that is simply the limited game rules often just make no sense.


The way I do a high level world is: It is Artificial. The world is made, run and kept that way. But this is a ''secret'' from common folks, though more of an open one.

King of Nowhere
2017-09-08, 01:47 PM
Well, a big part of this is you have to separate the ''game world'' from a more ''realistic like world''. A game world just has things and monsters and other stuff, and your not really meant to think about it. In a game world a player can say ''my character sleeps on the floor and eats just bread and drinks water'' and ''does nothing by make stuff''. In a better world, characters have to ''live real lives''. And on top of that is simply the limited game rules often just make no sense.


The way I do a high level world is: It is Artificial. The world is made, run and kept that way. But this is a ''secret'' from common folks, though more of an open one.

well, of course i'm talking about a realistic game world, one where at least some of the players are the kind of people who like to make questions and look for connections and find answers that make sense. in a superficial game world, the problem of how many high level npcs should be around does not exist, because nobody cares enough to ask the question.

BaconAwesome
2017-09-08, 02:27 PM
Speaking of Forgotten Realms, I like the Icewind Dale/Ten-Towns solution,* and am planning to start my level 1 campaign in some out of the way frontier, with large developed nations off in a few directions, and trackless wilderness and ruined wastes in the other, so even retired adventurers or heroes of the local towns will be at best 6-9 level, and there will only be a few of those, with enough on their minds that they can't give the party much help until their own towns are literally under attack. As the characters level up, they can either become the leaders of their area, or they can move to the big city and be medium fish in a much bigger pond. That will also let me keep the more developed regions and economy kind of vague until the players decide to go there.

* As I recall the books, once Salvatore's Drizzt series gets out of the Underdark, the series lets Drizzt and his companions adventure around in a semi-arctic relatively rural region so that Drizzt and his companions don't have to have adventures in Elminster's shadow. They take occasional road trips that put them in contact with overpowered godlings like Cadderly, but when they head back home, they can have CR-appropriate adventures with high stakes for their region.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-08, 05:16 PM
I generally prefer systems that don't need such power scanning. In Fantasy AGE a 20th level warrior or mage is formidable and an asset, but can still be hit by a basic bandit, as they likely only have a defence of 14-18, although with probably up to 149hp (assuming CON 4) it'll take a lot of hits to take him down (but this game has a problem with HP inflation, out should remove the +1d6 the first 10 levels give). However anything they can defeat can be defeated with a decent number of low level folk. Mages have it worse combat wise and there aren't any world alerting spells in the game yet (if any ate released they'll likely not be like the Arcana PC mages use). Out doesn't Mayer if the king is 20th level, with a bit of placing and luck the PCs can take him down.


Strangely, the problem I have with high level NPCs is that they make it hard to ruin HIGH LEVEL adventures. Hell invading is meant to be a rare thing, it happens seriously once every few years when they can slate the manpower, and so of my plot has hell invading then I have to all why the high level heroic NPCs aren't helping. In Fantasy AGE the answer is simple, they are but even a twentieth level mage doesn't have the power to push hell back, so that's why you're there to fight hell on a different front in the hopes one of you can solve the penmen. I can run low to mid level plots fine in D&D Forgotten Realms, but when hell opens a portal and invades I have to all why Elminster doesn't appear, close the portal with a single spell slot, and teleport back to whatever he was doing (because that guy probably has an infinite teleports magic item, or at least a bunch of 5/day teleport items). I have to have some other god level crisis going on at the same time, because there's so many god-like spellcasters (which is really the problem, D&D spellcasters ate gods at high levels) that anybody short of Asmodeus (who isn't behind the invasion because he knows Otto get him nothing) can distract them all. Because Ao knows some player well ask why Elminster/Rimbslyr*/whoever isn't helping.

* While this was a misspelling of Elminster I caught, I liked the name. I've decided he's a twenty third level cleric who's a bit nuts but a god keeps him around to point at any inconvenient apocalypses that arise.

Knaight
2017-09-08, 06:09 PM
In practice, I generally mostly GM lower level worlds (usually in systems which don't have levels, but which occupy that power structure). With that said, I have no issue with either a high level or a low level world, including variations where the players are playing weak characters in a big and dangerous world or strong characters in a low level world. Similarly, I have no issue with low level characters dealing with very big problems, or high level characters embroiled in the deeply personal. I'd even go so far as to say that all eight combinations available can all work - some of them are just trickier than others. Listing these one by one:

World, Characters, Scope

Low Level, Low Level, Epic: I personally find this a bit overplayed, but it can work just fine. A circumstance of some sort that puts the characters at a disproportionate level of influence is needed, but it can easily just be being in the right place at the right time. It's also pretty standard for low level D&D.
Low Level, Low Level, Personal: This is probably my favorite format, and it's pretty much self justifying. It crops up all over the place in terms of game systems.
Low Level, High Level, Epic: There's some caution needed in setting this up to not make it highly powerful characters going through the world effortlessly solving non-problems, and to some extent the world still needs big things in it despite being a low level world. That's not necessarily a problem - there's titanic forces of nature, the weight of cultures made of millions of people, and inherently large goals that come from a world being wide rather than tall. Exalted can fit here.
Low Level, High Level, Personal: This can work really well, and it generally involves some small number of very powerful people involved in personal struggles with each other. Everyone else then lives in the shadow of these conflicts. Nobilis comes to mind as an example game focused on this, as does Mythender.
High Level, Low Level, Epic: This one is on the trickier side, and it needs an actual solid explanation for why world full of powerful individuals is leaving the world saving to the weak. There are usable explanations, with a big one being that the epic danger only applies to the weaker parts of the world anyways and thus the other ones just don't care (Mouseguard) and another being that the big institutions don't actually believe the problem exists (a fair amount of urban fantasy).
High Level, Low Level, Personal: Here we have the games about ordinary people caught up in really big events, just trying to hold onto their ordinary lives while everything goes to pieces. I've had limited luck with it in RPGs, but it's a proven story structure and one that I'm waiting to bring out given a fairly particular set of players.
High Level, High Level, Epic: This is another default, where everything just fits easily together. High level D&D often looks like this, as do superhero games where there are more than a handful of superheroes.
High Level, High Level, Personal: Here the world being high level is basically a backdrop - you've got ordinary people dealing with personal problems, much like the low level, low level, personal example. It's just that "ordinary people" only exists as a category because of how when everyone is special, no-one is - the baseline power for the setting is potentially ridiculous. Eclipse Phase and Freemarket fit here.




I think this varies so much with genre and system, it's not something you can quantify so easily. A game like Call of Cthulhu automatically has high-level endgame bosses, but in the interim could be just a bunch of cultists/mundane humans with no particular power. On the other hand, Exalted is filled to the brim with hyper-powered individuals because of the source material and lore, and the players are part of that contingent from the get-go.

A game like Call of Cthulhu almost certainly doesn't fit the game structure which produces end game bosses in the first place.

Cluedrew
2017-09-08, 06:41 PM
Has anyone ever done anything with the idea of counter-balance and truces? Where the stronger characters can't move directly because it would provoke other level 15 characters (not all of which are heroes, or are heroes to different people) and so they try to delegate instead? That could lead to an interesting effect once the PC's get high enough that they have to start acting indirectly. Actually, has anyone ever played a campaign where the PC's (at least in part) have played the role of the quest giver?


A game like Call of Cthulhu almost certainly doesn't fit the game structure which produces end game bosses in the first place.The focus here is on end game and not boss.

Knaight
2017-09-08, 06:45 PM
The focus here is on end game and not boss.

The structure of characters growing constantly in power and facing bigger and bigger threats that produces a distinct end game is also not likely to be there.

Drakevarg
2017-09-08, 06:53 PM
I generally create my world around the assumption that high-level characters exist, but have other things to worry about or just don't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. It helps that I generally run low-magic games, but even when I don't the fact that there's a near-epic wizard somewhere out there doesn't matter much when there are also a bunch of near-epic wizards who are also dragons.

So between the fact that a lot of global forces are Cold War'd into keeping the ruckus down and the rest have their own problems to deal with, and the fact that there are simply far more low-level threats than there are high-level characters to deal with them trivial or no, low level PCs have plenty of room to shine. Iron Man has bigger problems to worry about than fighting street crime, to say nothing of whats on Dr. Strange's plate. And when the party gets high enough level to be dealing with problems on that kind of pay grade, chances are their NPC peers are too busy dealing with their own stuff to fix everything on the PC's behalf.

Ultimately making sure the PCs aren't made irrelevant has less to do with the power scale of those around them, but the nature of the problems they have to deal with. It's either local and they're the most qualified people on hand, it's personal, it's just shy of being big enough for the most qualified NPC available to drop what their doing to help, or for some likely MacGuffin-related reason the PC has to take the lead. And probably numerous other reasons I can't think of off the top of my head. Point being that the world is big, the problem the PCs are dealing with is not the only crisis happening at any given moment, and high-leveled NPCs can't be everywhere at once.

Nifft
2017-09-08, 06:56 PM
Speaking of Forgotten Realms, I like the Icewind Dale/Ten-Towns solution,* and am planning to start my level 1 campaign in some out of the way frontier, with large developed nations off in a few directions, and trackless wilderness and ruined wastes in the other, so even retired adventurers or heroes of the local towns will be at best 6-9 level, and there will only be a few of those, with enough on their minds that they can't give the party much help until their own towns are literally under attack. As the characters level up, they can either become the leaders of their area, or they can move to the big city and be medium fish in a much bigger pond. That will also let me keep the more developed regions and economy kind of vague until the players decide to go there.

* As I recall the books, once Salvatore's Drizzt series gets out of the Underdark, the series lets Drizzt and his companions adventure around in a semi-arctic relatively rural region so that Drizzt and his companions don't have to have adventures in Elminster's shadow. They take occasional road trips that put them in contact with overpowered godlings like Cadderly, but when they head back home, they can have CR-appropriate adventures with high stakes for their region.

Ironically, he is now the uber-NPC of that region, who in turn de-protagonizes the PCs.

I guess you either die a Drizzt, or you live long enough to become the Elminster.

== == ==


Here's one thing I have done (in a mid-level homebrew setting). It's basically all about power at a price, and how those prices make NPCs incapable of doing the PC's jobs for them.


(restricted mobility): NPCs don't follow PC rules. The high priest who can cast 6th level Cleric spells is not a level 11 Cleric. Nope, she's a level 4 Cleric who is soulbound to the high temple. She is only powerful in that location. This is why she can't travel, and why people make pilgrimages to see her at that location.

Those elite metropolitan city guards have classes like City-Bonded Urban Soul. They're very strong in their chosen city; they cannot retain that strength if they leave.

Other cities may have other powers which act as patrons. The god of a city might be a local spirit (natural or undead), or it might be something stranger.

The Oracle at Mt. Phython is only an oracle because of the divine energy upwelling at that location. Sure, you could stay in that cave for 10 years and get the same powers (for as long as you remained in the cave), but you're a PC and you don't want to do that except as 1st-level backstory.

The Dragonfire Adepts of Therax Valley get the majority of their power from a pact with the Great Wyrm Therax'firebutt. They can't travel more than 10 miles from their pact-Wyrm without losing their powers. This means they can totally march to war with Therax'firebutt, and they can control a decent swath of terrain, yet they cannot pursue distant targets if the Wyrm is stationary.


(restricted agency): NPCs don't follow PC rules. The Dread Demon-Knight Grazthrall cannot use any power without permission from her dark patron Grazzt. She is effectively geas'd before every mission, and part of every geas is that her power may only be used to further Grazzt's goals.


(restricted times): NPCs don't follow PC rules. The great Feast of the New Sun will give the local priest plenty of power to protect the city from the demon-army... but of course he can only do that on the day of the feast, which isn't for a week. The demon-army knows this, and will surely attack before that time.


(restricted time & place): Some ancient First Empire ritual sites have Shadow Circles, which can be used teleport vast distances, but only at sunrise or sunset. If you travel to a place which is not currently experiencing sunrise or sunset, you basically disappear from the universe until your destination does experience sunrise or sunset, at which point you appear. Shadow Circles are great for long-distance travel & safely transporting goods, but they're not a tactical substitute for teleportation, and everybody knows to guard their local Shadow Circle at the appropriate times.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-09, 05:41 AM
I generally create my world around the assumption that high-level characters exist, but have other things to worry about or just don't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. It helps that I generally run low-magic games, but even when I don't the fact that there's a near-epic wizard somewhere out there doesn't matter much when there are also a bunch of near-epic wizards who are also dragons.

So between the fact that a lot of global forces are Cold War'd into keeping the ruckus down and the rest have their own problems to deal with, and the fact that there are simply far more low-level threats than there are high-level characters to deal with them trivial or no, low level PCs have plenty of room to shine. Iron Man has bigger problems to worry about than fighting street crime, to say nothing of whats on Dr. Strange's plate. And when the party gets high enough level to be dealing with problems on that kind of pay grade, chances are their NPC peers are too busy dealing with their own stuff to fix everything on the PC's behalf.

The problem with this is that, once the PCs get to a high level, there's nothing for them to do. Everything's locked into a cold war and isn't causing any problems for the PCs to solve! Either that or they are and the high level NPCs have to solve a different high level problem, welcome to the apocalypse of the month club, the twelfth apocalypse is free of charge.

King of Nowhere
2017-09-09, 07:19 AM
The problem with this is that, once the PCs get to a high level, there's nothing for them to do. Everything's locked into a cold war and isn't causing any problems for the PCs to solve! Either that or they are and the high level NPCs have to solve a different high level problem, welcome to the apocalypse of the month club, the twelfth apocalypse is free of charge.

Well, the DM has to come up with an explanation why something is happening that the party needs to fix. It's no different from having to come up with an explanation why the party is being asked to do it and not sommeone else that crops up at lower levels.

Personally, I am gradually increasing the tensions between nations as the pcs become gradually bigger fish. When they'll be really high level, the high priest of vecna will finally figure out how to become a god (something he'd been working on for several centuries) and the pcs will have to stop him, especially given how the ascension process kills a lot of people. This will spark an all-out war between the alllies of the church of vecna and their enemies. Powers from other planes may also try to take advantage of the situation to invade. So, I believe the party will have their hands full at that point.

Faily
2017-09-09, 08:57 AM
Strangely, the problem I have with high level NPCs is that they make it hard to ruin HIGH LEVEL adventures. Hell invading is meant to be a rare thing, it happens seriously once every few years when they can slate the manpower, and so of my plot has hell invading then I have to all why the high level heroic NPCs aren't helping. In Fantasy AGE the answer is simple, they are but even a twentieth level mage doesn't have the power to push hell back, so that's why you're there to fight hell on a different front in the hopes one of you can solve the penmen. I can run low to mid level plots fine in D&D Forgotten Realms, but when hell opens a portal and invades I have to all why Elminster doesn't appear, close the portal with a single spell slot, and teleport back to whatever he was doing (because that guy probably has an infinite teleports magic item, or at least a bunch of 5/day teleport items). I have to have some other god level crisis going on at the same time, because there's so many god-like spellcasters (which is really the problem, D&D spellcasters ate gods at high levels) that anybody short of Asmodeus (who isn't behind the invasion because he knows Otto get him nothing) can distract them all. Because Ao knows some player well ask why Elminster/Rimbslyr*/whoever isn't helping.

* While this was a misspelling of Elminster I caught, I liked the name. I've decided he's a twenty third level cleric who's a bit nuts but a god keeps him around to point at any inconvenient apocalypses that arise.


One of the solutions to that particular problem is that the Heroic NPCs are doing something else, or for some reason cannot act easily. Like, if there's an invasion from hell (or other plane), it doesn't mean that Elminster or any other Heroic NPC is in the vicinity and/or available to help. Elminster and similar characters often get entangled in other problems and stories, which could occupy their attention while the invasion happens (so while the PCs fight of the invasion, Elminster is on a quest to save the fabric of reality or something like that). Or they could be fighting against the invasion, but it's too big for them to single-handedly take care of.

In D&D Online, one of the quest-storylines there that brought Eberron and Forgotten Realms together involved Lolth and the Demon Lord known as the Spinner of Shadows. You end up travelling through the Demonweb to reach Faerun and meet with Elminster. He claims he cannot act because "Lolth is wary of my involvement and keeps an eye on me, but she wouldn't suspect you". I find that this could work too, so in the case of an invasion in the Realms, Elminster might act as a quest-giver/advisor to the PCs, but he himself cannot act too much because it will draw attention from the enemy.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-09, 09:08 AM
Well, the DM has to come up with an explanation why something is happening that the party needs to fix. It's no different from having to come up with an explanation why the party is being asked to do it and not sommeone else that crops up at lower levels.

Kinda sorta? I mean, when the PCs are 3rd level then they're better than the average person, so it makes sense for people to come to them for low level stuff, the same at about 4th-9th level and until [cutoff point based on world]. Sure, there's other people of that level around, but there's enough jobs that everybody can get something to do most months. At 1st-3rd level PCs get work by not being too expensive and being willing to risk their lives.

However, as you get to higher levels the problems PCs would tend to solve tend to become less frequent. Hell doesn't just invade every week, and while occasionally they'll do it at the same time as the Tarrasque awakes (imagine for the sake of argument that the Tarrasque is scary). So either you don't have the NPCs high level enough to deal with this stuff (not too hard, depending on the threat it's a cutoff anywhere between 13th and 19th level), have few of them so it's possible that they aren't dealing with this stuff, or have some reason why they aren't involved. No, 'supernatural cold war' doesn't help because this is the sort of stuff that's meant to be occupying their time.

Now, if there's only two 20th level NPCs in the world/continent, and they increase in number by the next power of two per level dropped that's not too much of a problem, you have less than 1000 NPCs of level 15+ in the continent, they can deal with this. But when every kingdom has one or more characters with 18+ levels roaming about it becomes difficult (although I don't think FR is quite an example, I think most high level NPCs are ~15th level?). Yes such worlds do exist, they're the same where the bartender tends to be a 10th level fighter, and the problem exists at a smaller scale for any large number of NPCs over about 10th level. It's not unmanageable, but it's a good argument for keeping the average number of high level NPCs down.

I think Eberron's '10th level is legendary' went about it in the right way. Most of the world doesn't have 13th level NPCs, but at the same time they don't have a massive need for high level NPCs.


Personally, I am gradually increasing the tensions between nations as the pcs become gradually bigger fish. When they'll be really high level, the high priest of vecna will finally figure out how to become a god (something he'd been working on for several centuries) and the pcs will have to stop him, especially given how the ascension process kills a lot of people. This will spark an all-out war between the alllies of the church of vecna and their enemies. Powers from other planes may also try to take advantage of the situation to invade. So, I believe the party will have their hands full at that point.

I mean it's fine, you can sort this stuff out, it's just there seems to be a tendency to have a load of high level NPCs around who end up having to do nothing because the GM accidentally placed them somewhere they could help, or the plot is exactly what they're supposed to prevent. If there's too many and you need to keep a lot away from your plot so the high level PCs aren't upstaged by the slightly higher level NPCs then it quickly hit 'apocalypse of the month' club as each of the 10+ nearby (read: a kingdom or two away) NPCs needs a reason they can't help in this case (which for some might just be they don't want to, but it'll rarely be so for all of them).

King of Nowhere
2017-09-09, 03:37 PM
I mean it's fine, you can sort this stuff out, it's just there seems to be a tendency to have a load of high level NPCs around who end up having to do nothing because the GM accidentally placed them somewhere they could help, or the plot is exactly what they're supposed to prevent. If there's too many and you need to keep a lot away from your plot so the high level PCs aren't upstaged by the slightly higher level NPCs then it quickly hit 'apocalypse of the month' club as each of the 10+ nearby (read: a kingdom or two away) NPCs needs a reason they can't help in this case (which for some might just be they don't want to, but it'll rarely be so for all of them).

You simply don't have plots regarding apocalypse. Yes, if hell tried to invade the high level world, all those high level people would have a great laugh before uniting and annihilating the threat. You simply rely on a different kind of plots, were (many of) those other high level people are your enemies.

Darth Ultron
2017-09-09, 05:34 PM
The problem with this is that, once the PCs get to a high level, there's nothing for them to do. Everything's locked into a cold war and isn't causing any problems for the PCs to solve! Either that or they are and the high level NPCs have to solve a different high level problem, welcome to the apocalypse of the month club, the twelfth apocalypse is free of charge.

It is not exactly a ''perfect'' cold war. There are all ways folks getting around things. It is more like 75% of the world is locked....but 25% or so is free.

Drakevarg
2017-09-09, 06:10 PM
It is not exactly a ''perfect'' cold war. There are all ways folks getting around things. It is more like 75% of the world is locked....but 25% or so is free.

And probably not the same 75/25 split all the time. As the balance of power shifts, different people are free to operate at different times, depending on who is pointing a gun at whose face at the moment.

Psikerlord
2017-09-10, 08:32 PM
I personally believe the best upper range is capped at about 10th-12th. No-one gets higher than this. This is the end game for PCs and NPCs alike.

There are only a handful of people over 10th in the world. 95% of NPCs are zero level.

City guard etc are 1 HD, captains 3 HD. The kingsguard former veteran warrior is 7th level. The greatest swordsman in the region is 7th level. In the world is 10th level. There hasnt been an 11th+ level swordsmen for two generations.

A big, badass enemy sorcerer is 6th level.

Monsters, of course, need not be so limited. The Dragon, a 25 HD behemoth lives in a remote mountian, or a 20HD demon is the BBEG. Because the people are level capped, and at 8th - 9th the PCs are some of the greatest adventurers in the land, these big enemies remain truely frightening throughout the whole campaign.

King of Nowhere
2017-09-10, 08:59 PM
I personally believe the best upper range is capped at about 10th-12th. No-one gets higher than this. This is the end game for PCs and NPCs alike.

There are only a handful of people over 10th in the world. 95% of NPCs are zero level.

City guard etc are 1 HD, captains 3 HD. The kingsguard former veteran warrior is 7th level. The greatest swordsman in the region is 7th level. In the world is 10th level. There hasnt been an 11th+ level swordsmen for two generations.

A big, badass enemy sorcerer is 6th level.

Monsters, of course, need not be so limited. The Dragon, a 25 HD behemoth lives in a remote mountian, or a 20HD demon is the BBEG. Because the people are level capped, and at 8th - 9th the PCs are some of the greatest adventurers in the land, these big enemies remain truely frightening throughout the whole campaign.

Well, certainly reducing the power disparity between the average joe and the most powerful people helps avoid many of the problems. But how are the players supposed to defeat a level 20 foe if their level is capped at 10? unless they are extremely good players, the foes should also be proportionated to their capacity

Faily
2017-09-10, 09:11 PM
I too am curious about how you're going about setting up scenarios for defeating HD20+ opponents when the party is capped at Level 10. (Not to mention the other monsters with lower HD that are completely unfair to face when looking at their printed CR. Yes, I am looking at you, Bone Naga!)

GungHo
2017-09-11, 09:59 AM
World, Characters, Scope

High Level, Low Level, Epic: This one is on the trickier side, and it needs an actual solid explanation for why world full of powerful individuals is leaving the world saving to the weak. There are usable explanations, with a big one being that the epic danger only applies to the weaker parts of the world anyways and thus the other ones just don't care (Mouseguard) and another being that the big institutions don't actually believe the problem exists (a fair amount of urban fantasy).


This ends up being the "real world". And what I mean by "real world" is that it feels like you're being delegated tasks, which is great when you're being paid by a Fortune 500 company to perform them as a salaried white collar worker. Not so much as a "this is your job, but with dragons".

Knaight
2017-09-11, 11:00 AM
This ends up being the "real world". And what I mean by "real world" is that it feels like you're being delegated tasks, which is great when you're being paid by a Fortune 500 company to perform them as a salaried white collar worker. Not so much as a "this is your job, but with dragons".

Look at the examples there - Mouse Guard doesn't come across like that at all. Neither do various fictional stories involving being the small group of people who know the truth and thus can act, while the actual powers of the setting are largely oblivious.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-11, 11:19 AM
I too am curious about how you're going about setting up scenarios for defeating HD20+ opponents when the party is capped at Level 10. (Not to mention the other monsters with lower HD that are completely unfair to face when looking at their printed CR. Yes, I am looking at you, Bone Naga!)

Bare in mind Psikerlord made his own game where the PCs cap at 12th level, so his monsters aren't exactly the same as D&D ones (no matter the edition). Just like a Fantasy AGE demon lord is not the same as a 3.X demon lord (for one defence doesn't scale much for anybody in F-AGE, but neither does accuracy, so enough 1st level characters could take out a demon lord as it's only defence 12 with 130hp*). Now, my thoughts on Low Fantasy gaming (which boil down to 'I'd much rather run Fantasy AGE') aren't important here, but the point is Psikerlord doesn't have to worry about such problems as long as he's running his own system designed with this in mind.

(FWIW I like 10th level as the cap for neatness, but my next game might run all the way up to the mid teens if the players enjoy the world. It's because I'm going for a more complicated story that will take longer, and because the system I'm using won't break down as D&D likes to due to not including this world altering spells.)

* AR8 is a pain, and makes it so ideally you want warriors of at least 12th level to reliably dent that hp pool, because not even Lightning Bolt pierces that, but it's feasible to do it by arming villagers with bows (1d6+4 is the standard damage for an average peasant trained in and armed with a longbow, about one in six will hit and deal enough damage to harm it).

Faily
2017-09-11, 12:51 PM
Ah, it's a homebrew system. Fair enough. :smallsmile:

King of Nowhere
2017-09-11, 04:47 PM
High Level, Low Level, Epic: This one is on the trickier side, and it needs an actual solid explanation for why world full of powerful individuals is leaving the world saving to the weak. There are usable explanations, with a big one being that the epic danger only applies to the weaker parts of the world anyways and thus the other ones just don't care (Mouseguard) and another being that the big institutions don't actually believe the problem exists (a fair amount of urban fantasy).

Considering the huge amount of divinations in the world, and the fact that powerful people/instiitutions have access to those, it is a bit difficult to justify why the big powers don't believe the problem exist.
On the other hand, you can turn this liability into an asset: the problem is somehow resistant to divinations, so all the big institutions don't believe in it exactly because it gets past their radar, and because of that - and of their faith in the greater power of their magic - they may ignore all the evidence the pcs bring in. The party have to do it alone.

Psikerlord
2017-09-11, 07:00 PM
Well, certainly reducing the power disparity between the average joe and the most powerful people helps avoid many of the problems. But how are the players supposed to defeat a level 20 foe if their level is capped at 10? unless they are extremely good players, the foes should also be proportionated to their capacity

They need to come up with a damn fine plan, that's what! :D

Psikerlord
2017-09-11, 07:03 PM
I too am curious about how you're going about setting up scenarios for defeating HD20+ opponents when the party is capped at Level 10. (Not to mention the other monsters with lower HD that are completely unfair to face when looking at their printed CR. Yes, I am looking at you, Bone Naga!)

In 5e for example I see no problem with say 4-5 PCs at level 10 taking down a level 20 foe. Quite doable. Depends on the system however., it wouldnt work in 3e or 13th Age for example. So yeah this is a bit system dependent.

But ok, say it's 3e or 13th Age, well maybe go up to 15th level foes, not 20th. Something like that. Although, really, at 10th, PCs have so many options etc - and esp if in a high magic world with magic items too - it should be doable. Just very dangerous (and rightly so, that's what we want).

Knaight
2017-09-11, 07:37 PM
Considering the huge amount of divinations in the world, and the fact that powerful people/instiitutions have access to those, it is a bit difficult to justify why the big powers don't believe the problem exist.
On the other hand, you can turn this liability into an asset: the problem is somehow resistant to divinations, so all the big institutions don't believe in it exactly because it gets past their radar, and because of that - and of their faith in the greater power of their magic - they may ignore all the evidence the pcs bring in. The party have to do it alone.

I was speaking very generally, and not about D&D specifically, and the divination problem (and the related problems of well funded intelligence agencies, super advanced technological scanners, etc.) may or may not exist in setting. With that said the divination resistant threat is a good example of a case where the big powers just don't see the problem and can't be made to.

AMFV
2017-09-13, 03:36 AM
I was speaking very generally, and not about D&D specifically, and the divination problem (and the related problems of well funded intelligence agencies, super advanced technological scanners, etc.) may or may not exist in setting. With that said the divination resistant threat is a good example of a case where the big powers just don't see the problem and can't be made to.

Also of note, high powered threats in D&D (and other similar systems) are very likely to have methods of resisting or evading divination magics. And in most systems divination magics don't necessarily produce straight answers (are often cryptic) or misleading. So it's certainly possible to have a setting as you describe even in D&D with minimal houseruling.

And if the system doesn't have anything like that, then there's a much bigger reason why people are likely to not believe the PCs when they encounter something that resists divination.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-13, 04:08 AM
Also remember, in some worlds humanity is so low level to be below the notice of 'end game' threats. Until you decide to run Eldritch Skies rather than Call of Cthulhu and pull out a hyperspacial disruptor, at that point you can reliably banish Cthulhu for hours at a time until he gives up.

That's the other advantage to a low level world, it's theoretically possible to punch above your weight. I suspect this is why most science fiction games keep PCs at relatively low level (even Eclipse Phase does this, transhumanity is still children compared to some of the stuff out there), but allows them to use and reverse engineer technology to allow them to take on some big bad high level threats. Although science fiction also rarely includes literal gods and demons, unless we go to the Cthulhu Mythos again, and so high level here might be the equivalent of D&D levels 10-15 depending on the game.

The other thing is, in a low level world you might just be below the notice of high level threats. Sure, demons might tempt great warriors to make bargains to have more soldiers in their war with heaven, but the end goal is the souls not dominion over the world. Who cares about the world when you're fighting over multiple planes of reality.

Darth Ultron
2017-09-13, 06:33 AM
Also of note, high powered threats in D&D (and other similar systems) are very likely to have methods of resisting or evading divination magics. And in most systems divination magics don't necessarily produce straight answers (are often cryptic) or misleading. So it's certainly possible to have a setting as you describe even in D&D with minimal houseruling.

And if the system doesn't have anything like that, then there's a much bigger reason why people are likely to not believe the PCs when they encounter something that resists divination.

And the thing is games like D&D don't make sense. Of course, this is done on propose as it is ''just a game'' and it has a focus on just ''combat hero adventures''. It is not in any way a ''simulation of reality''.

Magic spells are a great example: open just about any book with spell in it and you find tons of combat spells. Tons of ways to do 6d6 damage...again. What you don't find are the dozens of ''daily life'' sort of spells, and the dozens of counter type spells. As soon as someone made the spell scrying, someone would make the spell block scrying the next day and so on and so on. There would be even dozens of anti-scrying type spells.

And not just spells but magic items, special substances, creatures and on and on.

Nifft
2017-09-13, 06:48 AM
What you don't find are the dozens of ''daily life'' sort of spells, and the dozens of counter type spells. As soon as someone made the spell scrying, someone would make the spell block scrying the next day and so on and so on. There would be even dozens of anti-scrying type spells.

And not just spells but magic items, special substances, creatures and on and on.

1) "I became an arch-lich specifically to get away from your so-called everyday life. I want nothing to do with mundane matters. My army of skeleton-butlers deals with such things."

2) If you want to block scrying, there (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm) are many (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magesPrivateSanctum.htm) upon many (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/falseVision.htm) useful spells (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm).

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-13, 07:18 AM
Magic spells are a great example: open just about any book with spell in it and you find tons of combat spells. Tons of ways to do 6d6 damage...again. What you don't find are the dozens of ''daily life'' sort of spells, and the dozens of counter type spells. As soon as someone made the spell scrying, someone would make the spell block scrying the next day and so on and so on. There would be even dozens of anti-scrying type spells.

For spells, take your pick:
-D&D is insanely combat focused as it is.
-Not wanting to write up the hundreds of spells and cantrips such as 'preserve bread' and 'sooth sprain' that are the logical conclusion of such magic.
-Counters do exist, in several forms for different effects. But they take time to develop, and so maybe 'scry ward' hasn't made it to this part of the world yet (which is completely believable, you don't make a spell by wanting to). Ignoring the various counters that are in D&D already (a good handful, for everything from scrying to magical security to teleportation).

For D&D everyday spells, if the party mage in 3.X wants a cantrip to solve some everyday problem that isn't in the book I'd certainly just let them have it. There's probably dozens of versions of 'clean sink' alone, so if you want to have 'light fire', 'make bed', 'fix wobbly stool', and 'summon toilet paper' in your spellbook I'd happily let you have them.

This is partly the 'everyday science fiction technology' problem, in that there's hundreds of items that should be on the equipment list but aren't because they'd just take up space. Computer memory, pens, string, pliers, noise generators, earphones, watches, nail clippers, contraception, ect. But people can make a rough estimate at how much these things are worth if they want to track them, so instead you get costs for things like communicators and guns, which people care about more. But like D&D, there will be counters (systems with hacking technology will also have computer security), although elements might be one sided.

AMFV
2017-09-13, 08:38 AM
And the thing is games like D&D don't make sense. Of course, this is done on propose as it is ''just a game'' and it has a focus on just ''combat hero adventures''. It is not in any way a ''simulation of reality''.

Quite. It like any system is an abstraction, and should be treated as such. That means that the DM is free to invent things as needed to maintain that abstraction if necessary or even to limit certain things. For example, potentially there are limits on Teleport that do not appear in the rules, which might never meaningfully affect a player's usage, but might in fact considerably limit the ability to use it on a society altering scale. As an example, that would be the sort of thing that I would install in any setting I'm creating.



Magic spells are a great example: open just about any book with spell in it and you find tons of combat spells. Tons of ways to do 6d6 damage...again. What you don't find are the dozens of ''daily life'' sort of spells, and the dozens of counter type spells. As soon as someone made the spell scrying, someone would make the spell block scrying the next day and so on and so on. There would be even dozens of anti-scrying type spells.

Exactly, which is perfect justification for a DM in inserting said spells.



And not just spells but magic items, special substances, creatures and on and on.

Again, the DM has a lot of options to pick from in this case.


For spells, take your pick:
-D&D is insanely combat focused as it is.
-Not wanting to write up the hundreds of spells and cantrips such as 'preserve bread' and 'sooth sprain' that are the logical conclusion of such magic.
-Counters do exist, in several forms for different effects. But they take time to develop, and so maybe 'scry ward' hasn't made it to this part of the world yet (which is completely believable, you don't make a spell by wanting to). Ignoring the various counters that are in D&D already (a good handful, for everything from scrying to magical security to teleportation).

For D&D everyday spells, if the party mage in 3.X wants a cantrip to solve some everyday problem that isn't in the book I'd certainly just let them have it. There's probably dozens of versions of 'clean sink' alone, so if you want to have 'light fire', 'make bed', 'fix wobbly stool', and 'summon toilet paper' in your spellbook I'd happily let you have them.

This is partly the 'everyday science fiction technology' problem, in that there's hundreds of items that should be on the equipment list but aren't because they'd just take up space. Computer memory, pens, string, pliers, noise generators, earphones, watches, nail clippers, contraception, ect. But people can make a rough estimate at how much these things are worth if they want to track them, so instead you get costs for things like communicators and guns, which people care about more. But like D&D, there will be counters (systems with hacking technology will also have computer security), although elements might be one sided.

Again, it's reasonable for the DM to add such elements if a setting as Knaight describes is one that they would like to create. It might also be reasonable to say that such elements do not exist, because Magic, as with all tech, may not have certain uses outside of wartime.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-13, 08:58 AM
Again, it's reasonable for the DM to add such elements if a setting as Knaight describes is one that they would like to create. It might also be reasonable to say that such elements do not exist, because Magic, as with all tech, may not have certain uses outside of wartime.

True, that was kind of my point with 'there might be reasons for this' and 'if I was GMing I would say sure, you can have Massage Foot as a spell'. In some settings Wash Dishes is a well known spell, in others you can't control magic finely enough to pull it off (most elemental systems are a prime example).

Going beyond adding minor and major spells wholesale, it is also fine to restrict spells. Maybe I'm running a game in Savage Worlds where I want magic to be subtler and potentially more psychic, I might remove the Bolt, Blast, Telekinesis, and other powers, or rule that Bolt is a mental attack and can only affect living beings, or whatever.

As I said, the fact that Eldritch Skies and the Savage Worlds corebook don't include prices for 3D printers doesn't mean the player's can't buy a 3D printer, I just have to give it a price (how does 400$ sound? cool? Alright, so what do you so while waiting for your 3D printer to arrive?). At the same time I might decide I don't like how fast Dragonfly Drive ships move and want interstellar humanity to use Gateways more, and as such chop spaceships speeds to anywhere between 1% and 10% of canon.

AMFV
2017-09-13, 09:06 AM
True, that was kind of my point with 'there might be reasons for this' and 'if I was GMing I would say sure, you can have Massage Foot as a spell'. In some settings Wash Dishes is a well known spell, in others you can't control magic finely enough to pull it off (most elemental systems are a prime example).


I think that the key is to recognize that the rules dealing with magic, do not include all the actual complexity of magic. Which is a point often forgotten by people. The same way that the rules for dealing with combat (even in a system that leans towards combat). do not have the actual complexity of combat. Remembering that the rules are an abstraction is pretty key, I think in order to use the at their peak efficiency.

The point I was making was that to say that Knaight's setting idea was invalid because of the way the rules work is not necessarily all that well thought out, because the rules are mutable around the needs of the setting, and are abstract anyways from the way that the real world works.



Going beyond adding minor and major spells wholesale, it is also fine to restrict spells. Maybe I'm running a game in Savage Worlds where I want magic to be subtler and potentially more psychic, I might remove the Bolt, Blast, Telekinesis, and other powers, or rule that Bolt is a mental attack and can only affect living beings, or whatever.

That's also true, you could do all sorts of things that adjust how spells work to make a setting more palatable, in effect altering the abstraction to more accurately represent your setting.

King of Nowhere
2017-09-13, 05:31 PM
And the thing is games like D&D don't make sense. Of course, this is done on propose as it is ''just a game'' and it has a focus on just ''combat hero adventures''. It is not in any way a ''simulation of reality''.



Wrong. D&D wasn't supposed to make sense. The people who ddevised it just assumed pepole would have those fantasy adventures without pondering much on extrapolating the logical consequences of everything. What they did not take into account is that people who liked that kind of gaming are problem-solving, inquisitive people, the kind that looks at a problem and tries hard to solve it just because it's there, and this kind of people are also prone to extrapolating the logical consequences of stuff.

That's why we make so much fuss about worldbuilding and how many high level npcs should be in a world to make the world and the adventures wherein believable. If we didn't care about simulation of reality and making sense, we could just have a 1st level party dealing with a worldwide threat in a world full of 20th level guys who do absolutely nothing about it, simply because nobody is asking why the more powerful people aren't intervening.

Tanarii
2017-09-13, 05:58 PM
simply because nobody is asking why the more powerful people aren't intervening.That pretty much describes every player I've ever had. Threads like this are a tempest in a teapot as far as I can tell. No one I've ever played with cares about macro-economics or predator/prey ratio or where are the high level NPCs and why are we the ones dealing with this. They just play the game in front of them.

This is why you can totally have things like Mystara, where one of the Empires has a ruling council of 1000 lvl 36 mages and countries right next to each other have drastically different environments and cultures ... and the players won't even bat an eye. Only the DM, who is reading the gazetteers and boxed sets and looking at the campaign from an Immortal's-eye view, might think it's kind of weird and worry about such things.

King of Nowhere
2017-09-13, 07:40 PM
That pretty much describes every player I've ever had. Threads like this are a tempest in a teapot as far as I can tell. No one I've ever played with cares about macro-economics or predator/prey ratio or where are the high level NPCs and why are we the ones dealing with this. They just play the game in front of them.

This is why you can totally have things like Mystara, where one of the Empires has a ruling council of 1000 lvl 36 mages and countries right next to each other have drastically different environments and cultures ... and the players won't even bat an eye. Only the DM, who is reading the gazetteers and boxed sets and looking at the campaign from an Immortal's-eye view, might think it's kind of weird and worry about such things.

Well, I do worry about those things, and I just started a campaign as a player, so now there is at least one :smallwink:

More players still consider it, but from another angle: namely, if there are people more powerful than we are, can we just persuade them to do our job? And if there aren't, can we loot the local town to advance past the whealt-by-level system?

Once, one of my player managed to recruit a super rich guy (owner of many diamond mines; diamonds are fuel to most magic, so they are a bit like oil in our world, and the guy is roughly the equivalent of an oil sheik) to help him take down the villain I had set up for at least another dozen sessions; this rich guy proceeded to bribe every single ally of the villain away from him, get the villain delivered to him, then execute him by stoning the villain with egg-sized diamonds, which he then left behind as payment. Yes, the guy was that rich - plus, diamonds are somewhat more common in my campaign world than in the real world. All because I made the mistake of having the villain piss that rich guy as part of an evil plan that the party foiled, and so I couldn't come up with a good excuse on why the rich guy wouldn't want to be involved.

This experience taught me that it is very important to establish what the powerful npcs are doing, and especially give them good motivations for not intervening. Otherwise some player will manage to coopt them.

Faily
2017-09-13, 08:35 PM
Ah Mystara... <3 My first impression of it was "the kitchen-sink setting". :smallbiggrin:

And yet the powerful NPCs are busy with their own things. The wizard-nobility of Alphatia are either high on magical hallucogenic drugs, fighting their neighbour-kings, or fighting against Thyatis. Thyatis is less chaotic than Alphatia, but are trying to expand on many fronts. The mages of Glantri are too busy with their secret societies and LARP of Paranoia to get involved too much. The elves of Alfheim are kind of navel-gazing and frolicking in the forest.

Mystara have places like the Thunder Rift that works excellently for low-level play. It's like a micro-universe of everything a D&D setting should have (dwarf fortress, elven forest, undead swamps, mysterious woods, plains, hills, caves, etc) in a small vale. And as you level up you can go exploring the world and get involved in more high-level stuff, like going up against dragons, plot against Alphatian or Glantrian nobles, carving out your own kingdom somewhere.

AMFV
2017-09-14, 01:27 AM
Wrong. D&D wasn't supposed to make sense. The people who ddevised it just assumed pepole would have those fantasy adventures without pondering much on extrapolating the logical consequences of everything. What they did not take into account is that people who liked that kind of gaming are problem-solving, inquisitive people, the kind that looks at a problem and tries hard to solve it just because it's there, and this kind of people are also prone to extrapolating the logical consequences of stuff.

Well quite a bit of early D&D WAS supposed to make sense, in a certain fashion. What's important to remember is that logical conclusions are not always valid particularly when they apply to political or social systems that may have a great deal of nuance that we're not seeing. Probably if it's a big deal for your players you should figure out how to explain this sort of thing. But there are quite satisfactory explanations.



That's why we make so much fuss about worldbuilding and how many high level npcs should be in a world to make the world and the adventures wherein believable. If we didn't care about simulation of reality and making sense, we could just have a 1st level party dealing with a worldwide threat in a world full of 20th level guys who do absolutely nothing about it, simply because nobody is asking why the more powerful people aren't intervening.

I don't change my own oil. I pay somebody else to do that. I don't think it's worth my time to do so. A high level knight may not root out a kobold village that's threatening local trade, cause he can hire somebody else to do it. He's got the money. I don't understand why people are so skeptical of paying somebody to do something unpleasant, even something that you could pay for easily, when people in the real world do that all the time. I mean if I'm a high level fighter to deal with a Kobold village I probably still would lose an hour or two I could be using for something else, like reading, or relaxing, or administering my castle whatever it is I do with my time, me hiring a bunch of lower level adventurers, that's like two minutes of my time (less if I have servants to do most of the work).


That pretty much describes every player I've ever had. Threads like this are a tempest in a teapot as far as I can tell. No one I've ever played with cares about macro-economics or predator/prey ratio or where are the high level NPCs and why are we the ones dealing with this. They just play the game in front of them.

This is why you can totally have things like Mystara, where one of the Empires has a ruling council of 1000 lvl 36 mages and countries right next to each other have drastically different environments and cultures ... and the players won't even bat an eye. Only the DM, who is reading the gazetteers and boxed sets and looking at the campaign from an Immortal's-eye view, might think it's kind of weird and worry about such things.

While this is true, I find that having a setting that stands up to scrutiny is often funner for me as the DM than one where it doesn't. I think there's something to be said for knowing the answers to questions even ones that remain unasked.


Well, I do worry about those things, and I just started a campaign as a player, so now there is at least one :smallwink:

More players still consider it, but from another angle: namely, if there are people more powerful than we are, can we just persuade them to do our job? And if there aren't, can we loot the local town to advance past the whealt-by-level system?

Once, one of my player managed to recruit a super rich guy (owner of many diamond mines; diamonds are fuel to most magic, so they are a bit like oil in our world, and the guy is roughly the equivalent of an oil sheik) to help him take down the villain I had set up for at least another dozen sessions; this rich guy proceeded to bribe every single ally of the villain away from him, get the villain delivered to him, then execute him by stoning the villain with egg-sized diamonds, which he then left behind as payment. Yes, the guy was that rich - plus, diamonds are somewhat more common in my campaign world than in the real world. All because I made the mistake of having the villain piss that rich guy as part of an evil plan that the party foiled, and so I couldn't come up with a good excuse on why the rich guy wouldn't want to be involved.

This experience taught me that it is very important to establish what the powerful npcs are doing, and especially give them good motivations for not intervening. Otherwise some player will manage to coopt them.

Well that sounds like the players did exactly as they were supposed to. At that point you should start figuring out either people that are unbribable, or another villain in the shadows. Any villain who can simply be beaten with sufficient funds is probably not going to be the sort of person that's going to be a threat to a mid level party.

It's also important to note that just because somebody is very wealthy doesn't mean they have lots of money available, maybe the rich guy has it all tied up in assets and investments and has limited liquid funds at this point. Maybe his reckless spending on a vengeance quest attracts negative attention from his business partners, allowing him to be of limited help to the players but not simply solve things for them. That's probably what I would do. Or maybe he pisses off the villain enough that he responds by having him killed, which is something that works as well on rich and poor alike.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-14, 02:01 AM
plus, diamonds are somewhat more common in my campaign world than in the real world.

Wow, people must stumble over them every day. Okay, exaggeration, but they aren't exactly super rare in the real world. Plus alchemists must be desperately searching for some way to turn graphine into diamonds, which is not that hard (it can be done with pressure).


I don't change my own oil. I pay somebody else to do that. I don't think it's worth my time to do so. A high level knight may not root out a kobold village that's threatening local trade, cause he can hire somebody else to do it. He's got the money. I don't understand why people are so skeptical of paying somebody to do something unpleasant, even something that you could pay for easily, when people in the real world do that all the time. I mean if I'm a high level fighter to deal with a Kobold village I probably still would lose an hour or two I could be using for something else, like reading, or relaxing, or administering my castle whatever it is I do with my time, me hiring a bunch of lower level adventurers, that's like two minutes of my time (less if I have servants to do most of the work).

It sounds weird, but in practice said complaint normally scales.

'We're second level and being sent to deal with the bandits. But the Guard captain is fifth level, and has a good number of third level guards in his employ, why are they sending us to do this?'

Now, if the captain of the guard is third level and his guards are first to second level then the PCs will complain less. Still grumble, but they're being hired as extra manpower just as likely to get the job done.

Repeat with the correct NPCs and/or organisations up until the levels where you get the 'invasions from hell don't just happen every day' problem (because not every high level plot can involve politics, the players get bored).

AMFV
2017-09-14, 02:42 AM
Wow, people must stumble over them every day. Okay, exaggeration, but they aren't exactly super rare in the real world. Plus alchemists must be desperately searching for some way to turn graphine into diamonds, which is not that hard (it can be done with pressure).

Well that still doesn't mean that they can't be more common elsewhere.




It sounds weird, but in practice said complaint normally scales.

'We're second level and being sent to deal with the bandits. But the Guard captain is fifth level, and has a good number of third level guards in his employ, why are they sending us to do this?'

Because the Guard captain has to fill out reports, write patrol schedules, and remain on alert in case the village is attacked by potentially something less pleasant than the Kobolds he's sending the adventurers after. Also if the Guard Captain is dead, then the village is out their fifth level Guard Captain, and somebody of lesser level has to step in.

Adventurers have no other responsibilities to the town and are expendable. And not terribly expensive, so it's much easier to hire them to deal with something than leave the town undefended while the bulk of the town guard goes out to deal with a problem.

Also a town guard is typically the law enforcement in a small town, meaning that if they go out to deal with bandits or kobolds, there's a lot less legal enforcement in the town, if they do that often, lawlessness will increase in the very town they're trying to protect. It's the same reason that the English didn't devote all of their forces to the 100 Years War or the American Revolution, because they were concerned about problems closer to home.

So that's all pretty good explanations or at least should be sufficient.



Now, if the captain of the guard is third level and his guards are first to second level then the PCs will complain less. Still grumble, but they're being hired as extra manpower just as likely to get the job done.

But then unless you use the same exact of excuses I used above, there's a question of.... "why don't they come along too." Basically the answer is the same whether the guard captain is 20th level or 5th level, he has other responsibilities. If he's 20th level then maybe he's staying around the town in-case it gets attacked by demonfolk. Although I think 20th level might be a little high for a town guard, but there could be plenty of reasons that he'd hire somebody rather than doing it himself.



Repeat with the correct NPCs and/or organisations up until the levels where you get the 'invasions from hell don't just happen every day' problem (because not every high level plot can involve politics, the players get bored).

And the same answers work, with the addition of new answers as the people get more influential there's going to be more demands on their time preventing them from necessarily rushing off to deal with any problem. The level 16 retired adventurer king can't just leave critical negotiations that are keeping his country out of war to defend against a secret invasion from hell, that only a few are aware of, at least not without plunging his country into war. And that's just an off-the-top of my head example, like it's not terribly difficult to come up with these if players are asking about them, as long as your setting is robust enough to support them.

Anonymouswizard
2017-09-14, 03:14 AM
Because the Guard captain has to fill out reports, write patrol schedules, and remain on alert in case the village is attacked by potentially something less pleasant than the Kobolds he's sending the adventurers after. Also if the Guard Captain is dead, then the village is out their fifth level Guard Captain, and somebody of lesser level has to step in.

Adventurers have no other responsibilities to the town and are expendable. And not terribly expensive, so it's much easier to hire them to deal with something than leave the town undefended while the bulk of the town guard goes out to deal with a problem.

Also a town guard is typically the law enforcement in a small town, meaning that if they go out to deal with bandits or kobolds, there's a lot less legal enforcement in the town, if they do that often, lawlessness will increase in the very town they're trying to protect. It's the same reason that the English didn't devote all of their forces to the 100 Years War or the American Revolution, because they were concerned about problems closer to home.

So that's all pretty good explanations or at least should be sufficient.



But then unless you use the same exact of excuses I used above, there's a question of.... "why don't they come along too." Basically the answer is the same whether the guard captain is 20th level or 5th level, he has other responsibilities. If he's 20th level then maybe he's staying around the town in-case it gets attacked by demonfolk. Although I think 20th level might be a little high for a town guard, but there could be plenty of reasons that he'd hire somebody rather than doing it himself.



And the same answers work, with the addition of new answers as the people get more influential there's going to be more demands on their time preventing them from necessarily rushing off to deal with any problem. The level 16 retired adventurer king can't just leave critical negotiations that are keeping his country out of war to defend against a secret invasion from hell, that only a few are aware of, at least not without plunging his country into war. And that's just an off-the-top of my head example, like it's not terribly difficult to come up with these if players are asking about them, as long as your setting is robust enough to support them.

I mean, I get all of this, but players who'll complain about it complain about it anyway. (These players also have a tendency to notice that the guard have enough manpower to break up bar brawls, but don't realise that just means they send a couple of patrols by the pub occasionally.) I mean it can get really weird, I don't have a problem with the guard hiring adventurers occasionally, but when they have enough spare money to keep the party on indefinitely it gets annoying (I'm not kidding).

Although I'll admit my normal solution to such problems is 'you are the police, you're there to investigate and call in backup when there's something you can't handle', but I like science fiction settings, and my main fantasy setting is dungeonpunk. Players respond surprisingly better when them taking out the bandit camp themselves is showing a bit of initiative and not using resources that could also be used elsewhere.

Anyway, it's a relatively small number of players who are that annoying. Most players are happy to get one with the game (and as I've said before, I believe completely in 'higher level characters might have more important stuff to do').

AMFV
2017-09-14, 03:29 AM
I mean, I get all of this, but players who'll complain about it complain about it anyway. (These players also have a tendency to notice that the guard have enough manpower to break up bar brawls, but don't realise that just means they send a couple of patrols by the pub occasionally.) I mean it can get really weird, I don't have a problem with the guard hiring adventurers occasionally, but when they have enough spare money to keep the party on indefinitely it gets annoying (I'm not kidding).


Those players are probably going to complain about everything though. Because the reasons I gave are realistic reasons why a town sheriff might hire a hunter to kill a nuisance animal instead of going after it himself. I mean there are historical examples of auxiliary forces being hired by militia and what-not all-the-time. Because you can keep the peace in your own town and use your auxiliaries for things like fighting nearby Goblins without any extra risk to the town.

Now admittedly if the players are staying in one town indefinitely (very unusual in my experience), then you might have to work out a more permanent arrangement. Like having them hired as official auxiliary forces, but generally they're looking for spending money while travelling through the town, in which case they might be hired on temporarily. Also I mean if hiring them was cost-effective for dealing with a Goblin threat, it's not going to get any less so for hiring them to deal with Orcs who are harassing travellers. They have a working relationship with the guard, and are now professionals, whereas the Guard still has it's hands full w



Although I'll admit my normal solution to such problems is 'you are the police, you're there to investigate and call in backup when there's something you can't handle', but I like science fiction settings, and my main fantasy setting is dungeonpunk. Players respond surprisingly better when them taking out the bandit camp themselves is showing a bit of initiative and not using resources that could also be used elsewhere.

Well if they happen on a bandit camp that they're investigating that works, but not if they're hired to deal with a bandit camp.



Anyway, it's a relatively small number of players who are that annoying. Most players are happy to get one with the game (and as I've said before, I believe completely in 'higher level characters might have more important stuff to do').

Well again those players are complaining about something that is very realistic so I imagine they would look for things to complain about no matter what you did.

Nifft
2017-09-14, 03:31 AM
I don't change my own oil. I pay somebody else to do that. I don't think it's worth my time to do so. A high level knight may not root out a kobold village that's threatening local trade, cause he can hire somebody else to do it. He's got the money. I don't understand why people are so skeptical of paying somebody to do something unpleasant, even something that you could pay for easily, when people in the real world do that all the time. I mean if I'm a high level fighter to deal with a Kobold village I probably still would lose an hour or two I could be using for something else, like reading, or relaxing, or administering my castle whatever it is I do with my time, me hiring a bunch of lower level adventurers, that's like two minutes of my time (less if I have servants to do most of the work).


It's more problematic when the task is not merely a routine unpleasantness, but rather the end of the world as we know it.

At that point, you'd probably chip in rather than out-sourcing and going back to sleep.

Not every game is like that, of course, but it happens enough that people start to wonder.

Your advice is not relevant when "dealing with a worldwide threat", which is what that post was talking about.

-- -- --

Now, why are people both (a) playing in settings with lots of high-level NPCs, and (b) yet the PCs are expected to handle worldwide threats themselves?

Because their DM bought an Adventure Path for a published setting, of course.

Published adventures need PC motivations which are generic enough that any character concept can be hooked -- and "worldwide threat" is a tested, reliable, simple, generic, overused, and problematic go-to answer to achieve that effect.


So... what's better?

1/ Use a setting that isn't full of NPCs who are both high-power and allegedly heroic.

2/ Use a setting where NPCs are explicitly not built following PC rules, so you have an excuse for why the NPCs are credible as powers in the setting, and yet the PCs still have to be the ones who go save the world.

3/ Don't use worldwide threats as plots. Figure out what the PCs and/or players want, and craft more specific plot-hooks, instead of reaching for the generic one. This requires either not using published adventures, or modifying the adventures to cater more specifically to your group. This is more work. That's why it's not the default.

AMFV
2017-09-14, 03:40 AM
It's more problematic when the task is not merely a routine unpleasantness, but rather the end of the world as we know it.

At that point, you'd probably chip in rather than out-sourcing and going back to sleep.

Not every game is like that, of course, but it happens enough that people start to wonder.

Your advice is not relevant when "dealing with a worldwide threat", which is what that post was talking about.

Well first off, a goblin raiding trade into a village IS A WORLD ENDING THREAT, for that village. That doesn't mean that the guards can just go off and let the village descend into anarchy. Just because the world is ending doesn't mean that you don't have to do your job, it means that doing your job may be even more critical.

Edit: No more trade for many villages means people starve in the winter, that's something that we don't remember because we are in a modern privileged society, but that was certainly the case in the past.

Also you'll note that my 19th level retired adventurer dealt with the "World Ending" threat, so I addressed that example already in fairly good detail. The example provided was not specified to be a world ending threat, but rather a fifth level guard sending out people to kill goblins, instead of doing it himself.

Lastly, there are often more than one world ending threat present simultaneously in D&D. Maybe your party is dealing with forces invading from hell and the Wizard council is keeping the Far Realm from taking advantage of the chaos. Maybe they can't interfere for treaty reasons or for some other cosmic mojo reason, since it's a cosmic level thing there's a lot more room for handwaving stuff. And again you still have to maintain order, you still have to handle your responsibilities. Saving the kingdom isn't going do a lick of good if everybody starves because you weren't properly dealing with food rationing.



-- -- --

Now, why are people both (a) playing in settings with lots of high-level NPCs, and (b) yet the PCs are expected to handle worldwide threats themselves?

Because their DM bought an Adventure Path for a published setting, of course.

Published adventures need PC motivations which are generic enough that any character concept can be hooked -- and "worldwide threat" is a tested, reliable, simple, generic, overused, and problematic go-to answer to achieve that effect.

Actually most Adventure Paths do not have a world-ending threat until the players are themselves high level. It typically starts out with something much more mundane that is later discovered to be a world-ending threat. In which case, all of my simple excuses hold true.


So... what's better?

1/ Use a setting that isn't full of NPCs who are both high-power and allegedly heroic.

2/ Use a setting where NPCs are explicitly not built following PC rules, so you have an excuse for why the NPCs are credible as powers in the setting, and yet the PCs still have to be the ones who go save the world.

3/ Don't use worldwide threats as plots. Figure out what the PCs and/or players want, and craft more specific plot-hooks, instead of reaching for the generic one. This requires either not using published adventures, or modifying the adventures to cater more specifically to your group. This is more work. That's why it's not the default.

1.) That works, as an option, but it's not the only option. Again, there are plenty of ways to explain why high level NPCs do not involve themselves in a situation. Also you can have them involved, maybe they're taking on a different army of demons, and the players are just part of the team. That's a common enough trope, if the players are part of an organization, they have their role to play, and maybe they're a cog in a bigger plan to save the world. That's another option. Seriously it is not difficult to come up with non-immersion breaking options for this here. It's not a hard restriction.

2.) Asskicking doesn't equal authority was the default for most settings I thought. I mean it's unusual to have a setting where all of the powerful NPCs are high level, except for FR. And in FR there are enough world-ending threats that the one the players are dealing with is practically to be not the only world-ending threat at a particular given moment in time.

3.) That's an option, I wouldn't say it's necessarily more work, it's the same work. I mean in World-Ending you have to explain a great deal of detail about why things are the way they are, and in minor plots you have to do a lot more work to make things cater to your group. That's roughly similar amounts of work at least for me.

Nifft
2017-09-14, 04:31 AM
Well first off, a goblin raiding trade into a village IS A WORLD ENDING THREAT, for that village. Maybe I'll get to the rest later but for right now:

NO, IT IS NOT.

First off, a world is a big thing. It's generally a lot bigger than a village -- in fact, there are many other villages on a typical world. Also thorps, and hamlets, and manors, and often even cities.

Secondly, a raid is generally not the end of a village. Most places that have been raided survived being raided many, many times. Being raided is certainly a violation of the village's security, and there's probably significant loss of property & some life, but that's not the same thing as a global extinction event.


You're either missing the entire point, or you're making an argument so hyperbolic that it's indistinguishable from missing the entire point.

AMFV
2017-09-14, 04:37 AM
Maybe I'll get to the rest later but for right now:

NO, IT IS NOT.

First off, a world is a big thing. It's generally a lot bigger than a village -- in fact, there are many other villages on a typical world. Also thorps, and hamlets, and manors, and often even cities.

Secondly, a raid is generally not the end of a village. Most places that have been raided survived being raided many, many times. Being raided is certainly a violation of the village's security, and there's probably significant loss of property & some life, but that's not the same thing as a global extinction event.


You're either missing the entire point, or you're making an argument so hyperbolic that it's indistinguishable from missing the entire point.

You're a mining village, you do not grow enough food to actually feed all of the inhabitants in a bad winter. Goblin raids will decrease the food you get, and will kill you, or a good portion of your population if they are affecting trade. As far as the fifth level sheriff is concerned that's the end of the world. He starves to death, so that's world-ending. As far as most people are concerned life or death for them and their family is more important than anything else, so if something is threatening that it's already as bad a threat as it will ever get. They don't care if somebody in some far off kingdom also dies, they care if their family dies.

So yes, it is the equivalent of a world-ending threat if you are dependent on external trade and goblins are attacking caravans. It's the end of your world if you have a bad winter and starve and die, and your family starves and dies, and your bloodline is extinguished, which repeated goblin raids on caravans can certainly cause. There's a reason that most countries where paying the pirates of Tripoli not to **** with their trade rather than going to war with them.

So certainly paying mercenaries is an option for that, especially when you can't leave the town without problems potentially cropping up in town. If you go fight goblins, then hungry families raid the granaries steal all the food, and you starve anyways. Ergo the sheriff cannot deal with that problem because he has other responsibilities. This is reflected in real world things all the time. I'm providing examples that are based in reality. I'm not sure why this is something that you're staunchly against.

King of Nowhere
2017-09-14, 05:59 AM
I don't change my own oil. I pay somebody else to do that. I don't think it's worth my time to do so. A high level knight may not root out a kobold village that's threatening local trade, cause he can hire somebody else to do it. He's got the money. I don't understand why people are so skeptical of paying somebody to do something unpleasant, even something that you could pay for easily, when people in the real world do that all the time. I mean if I'm a high level fighter to deal with a Kobold village I probably still would lose an hour or two I could be using for something else, like reading, or relaxing, or administering my castle whatever it is I do with my time, me hiring a bunch of lower level adventurers, that's like two minutes of my time (less if I have servants to do most of the work).


I get the general principle, but I donb't think this high level fighter is so rich that he'll spend around 1000 gp to avoid doing his job for two hours.



Well that sounds like the players did exactly as they were supposed to. At that point you should start figuring out either people that are unbribable, or another villain in the shadows. Any villain who can simply be beaten with sufficient funds is probably not going to be the sort of person that's going to be a threat to a mid level party.

It's also important to note that just because somebody is very wealthy doesn't mean they have lots of money available, maybe the rich guy has it all tied up in assets and investments and has limited liquid funds at this point. Maybe his reckless spending on a vengeance quest attracts negative attention from his business partners, allowing him to be of limited help to the players but not simply solve things for them. That's probably what I would do. Or maybe he pisses off the villain enough that he responds by having him killed, which is something that works as well on rich and poor alike.
The party was 4th level, it was a case where the villain was scrying-protected so they could not call in others to deal with him.

The rich guy was really that rich. He sleeps on a pile of diamonds, he dresses in diamonds (bathes in glue, rolls in a pile of diamonds afterwards), he eats diamonds (has a small team of clerics to keep him alive; anyway, the diamonds are recovered from the palace sewers), he has a tropical beach with the sand made of diamonds. Just that means he's got around a million gp worth of diamonds lying around in his palace.
The party was a diplomatic escort, and the villain had mind dominated a memeber of the party to assassinate the rich guy, leading to a diplomatic incident and possibly a war, which would benefit the villain. The dominated party member had to drop hints that something was wrong with him, and the rest of the party had to take those hints.
In the end the rich guy was effectively killed, but the party member managed to get himself captured, so he could get interrogated and his innocence was proved.
The rich guy was resurrected, of course. when one has so much money, death is only a mild inconvenience. He actually run a very loose secutrity in his palace (what allowed a 4th level guy to kill him) as a status symbol: I don't care if you can come and kill me and steal all I have, I have so much money
that I can come back from that and mess with you. He was supposed to be mildly amused that somebody assassinated him, and not care. The party could persuade him to help them because if he didn't it would look like he was trying to save money, which would have shamed him in front of the other diamond lords.

Yeah, I basically made this guy as a joke without fully realizing the consequences, and how his paper-thin excuse for not getting involved afterwards would not hold to serious prodding.

AMFV
2017-09-14, 09:55 PM
I get the general principle, but I donb't think this high level fighter is so rich that he'll spend around 1000 gp to avoid doing his job for two hours.


But it isn't his job though. He has to deal with lots of other threats, presumably he has to spend time training so that he can maintain his skills and it's not like he's really getting anything out of fighting goblins, I mean worthless trinkets and a waste of his time. Also some of that has to do with the fact that economics in D&D don't make sense. The High/Low level thing that be explained away, but the economics are just absolutely ludicrous.



The party was 4th level, it was a case where the villain was scrying-protected so they could not call in others to deal with him.

Well that's fair, it makes sense that the party might not be believed, so that's one way around the problem.



The rich guy was really that rich. He sleeps on a pile of diamonds, he dresses in diamonds (bathes in glue, rolls in a pile of diamonds afterwards), he eats diamonds (has a small team of clerics to keep him alive; anyway, the diamonds are recovered from the palace sewers), he has a tropical beach with the sand made of diamonds. Just that means he's got around a million gp worth of diamonds lying around in his palace.
The party was a diplomatic escort, and the villain had mind dominated a memeber of the party to assassinate the rich guy, leading to a diplomatic incident and possibly a war, which would benefit the villain. The dominated party member had to drop hints that something was wrong with him, and the rest of the party had to take those hints.
In the end the rich guy was effectively killed, but the party member managed to get himself captured, so he could get interrogated and his innocence was proved.
The rich guy was resurrected, of course. when one has so much money, death is only a mild inconvenience. He actually run a very loose secutrity in his palace (what allowed a 4th level guy to kill him) as a status symbol: I don't care if you can come and kill me and steal all I have, I have so much money
that I can come back from that and mess with you. He was supposed to be mildly amused that somebody assassinated him, and not care. The party could persuade him to help them because if he didn't it would look like he was trying to save money, which would have shamed him in front of the other diamond lords.

Yeah, I basically made this guy as a joke without fully realizing the consequences, and how his paper-thin excuse for not getting involved afterwards would not hold to serious prodding.

I think the problem is that you're assuming that guy who is rich enough that death is a minor inconvenience would actually hold grudges. I imagine that somebody as you describe would probably be the "No hard feelings" type, even if you had him killed because it was just a minor inconvenience. Also I would probably have the villain take steps to stop his resurrection, there are ways to do that, and you can invent ways. Basically that's the moment when the other diamond lords realize that the villain is srs bzns and that if they act against him they could die permanently. So that would be your other alternative I think.

Pleh
2017-09-14, 10:16 PM
snip

Yes, having a world with many high level people can make the party feel redundant, as well as making players wonder why not every problem in that world is solved with magic.

Snip

You also wonder how can a world so low in power still exist against all the denizens of the various monster manuals and all the apocalipse triggers that only the players can stop. And what exactly is so special about the party that they are the only ones capable of rising to a very high level.

Snip

If you decide that in every nation there are a couple 15+adventurers, and that every major god has a cleric capable of 9th level spells, you are already looking at a couple dozens level 17+ clerics and several hundreds 15+ other people, which definitely make it a high level world. I mean, look at how big the world is, there are hundreds of nations. And once people become very powerful, they can teleport, so distance is not an issue. On the other hand, if you assume that most nations don't even have anyone above 15th level, then it begs the question of how can those nations survive without their rulers being overthrown by powerful adventurers on a regular base.

So I'd like to hear your thoughts on what is the appropriate amount of high level npcs to make a campaign world consistent and believable without falling into any of the problems mentioned above.

I typically use power circles. At low party level, higher level NPCs have no time to bother with the party, being busy dealing with global size issues. Low level parties get conscripted for missions too trivial for legendary high level adventurers.

When they get enough success, they get a promotion to mid level quests. Maybe now the regional politics requires their attention. They're probably key champions for guilds or other groups. Monsters of this level are just more rare by nature (otherwise civilization probably wouldn't have made it this far), and while still a waste of time for epic characters, dealing with global threats, they're too dangerous for low level adventurers to take on.

Tremendously few heroes, villains, or monsters ever make it to high level play, leaving them to deal with global sized territories and concerns. They lead international efforts to guide the plot of the setting and have too much on their plate to deal with local goblins in happy village 37 or the young dragon in the enchanted forest by the coastal trade city.

Often these world leaders will train or conscript lower level heroes to do lower level quests on their behalf.

Eladrinblade
2017-09-23, 05:28 PM
I started thinking at this after finding out that many people dislike the forgotten realms because there are so many high level npcs around.

Note I'm not responding to you so much as the comment itself.

This is only a problem if the DM makes it one. All the FR novels and and most of the video games have high level npc's make appearances, because those characters are staples. But faerun is a continent, and those characters aren't going to be everywhere. Go get a big map of faerun and look at all the towns and cities whose names you've never heard before. You could run an entire 1-20 game in faerun and never meet one of the staple npcs, the campaign setting book even says so.

I personally dislike just how powerful the npc's are. Elminster is like CR 40 and he's not even the most powerful caster. That said, I don't like the epic rules and I tend to cap my games/setting at lvl 21, with some enemies being in the mid 20s, and leave out the epic rules entirely.

2D8HP
2017-09-24, 12:22 AM
I've only read the original post, so maybe someone else has had a similar idea, but besides just playing a rules system where "leveling up" is less pronounced, you can have the whole setting "level-up" together.

I explored the idea in the Magic Lost and Reborn thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?487606-Magic-Lost-and-Reborn) of a world in which magic waxes and wanes, so that there's ruins and scrolls from around when magic was more effective, but not in living memory, until magic (and monsters) come back, so spells and magic items work again, but long slumbering dragons alsi start to wake.

As an alternative, have leveling up be place based. Deeper into "Faerie" the dangers are more dreadful, but the longer they're in it so are it's explorers.

In 1979 my Dad's girlfriend and her friend described D&D to me as "the deeper the level of the dungeon, the more dangerous the monsters, but also the more powerful the character your playing is", so there's some precedent.

Sapphire Guard
2017-09-25, 04:27 PM
High level settings means many high level threats. It shouldn't really be a problem most of the time.

"Do you know how many people come in here trying to convince me it's the end of the world? Go prove it and come back."

"I'm busy with the other threat, come back later."

"I have responsibilities I can't abandon so easily"

As for Mr. Diamond Mine, it seems like he could easily react like:

"You're trying to make me do all the work and then pay you for it? I have mines to run. I'll give you these two diamonds to take care of the problem for me. All you've done is bungle assassinating me, you don't get paid for that."

Or even "You are a diplomatic escort that got dominated into assassinating your host. Epic fail. Redeem yourselves. Bring me his head."