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Pex
2021-12-07, 08:19 PM
Personally, I don't like playable, alien-in-thought races. Because they'll be played by humans, which means played like humans. It also becomes much harder to rationalize why they're working together with people they cannot understand (or with whom the barriers to understanding are high). Because that's what alien-in-thought means--alien enough that mutual understanding is difficult if it's even possible.

Thrikeen were quite the rage back in my 2E days. Even in 5E now you'll find the occasional player who wants to play aaracokra (if just for flying) and especially kenku to have fun with their talking impediment. There are players who just have to play something odd and unique. I won't say outright they want to hog the spotlight. They can play "normally", but being alien is the whole point. They want to roleplay being odd. The trick is not to be That Guy about it.

dafrca
2021-12-07, 08:37 PM
Thrikeen were quite the rage back in my 2E days. Even in 5E now you'll find the occasional player who wants to play aaracokra (if just for flying) and especially kenku to have fun with their talking impediment. There are players who just have to play something odd and unique. I won't say outright they want to hog the spotlight. They can play "normally", but being alien is the whole point. They want to roleplay being odd. The trick is not to be That Guy about it.

It is always a very hard thing for even the best of role players to play something really "Alien". I tried to play a Hiver in a Traveller game once. Was honestly one of the hardest RP experiences to really try and not fall into the human in a rubber suit trap. :smallbiggrin:

Mastikator
2021-12-07, 08:40 PM
I was once in a one-shot where a player played a Kenku and brought a soundboard app, instead of talking he pulled some classic Samuel L Jackson lines.

Easily the funniest thing ever.

Ignimortis
2021-12-08, 12:41 AM
Personally, I don't like playable, alien-in-thought races. Because they'll be played by humans, which means played like humans. It also becomes much harder to rationalize why they're working together with people they cannot understand (or with whom the barriers to understanding are high). Because that's what alien-in-thought means--alien enough that mutual understanding is difficult if it's even possible.

Exactly. This is why I don't mind rubber ear races and frown upon playable races that are supposed to be entirely non-humanoid in mind and body. It's much easier to understand what an elf thinks like if they're just "human except for X".

NichG
2021-12-08, 01:55 AM
I don't think it's necessary for players to be perfect in trying to play alien minds. If they can find something interesting to think about in the attempt, that's enough for it to have some value as an option. Maybe they'll effectively be rubber suit humans 98% of the time, but that's okay. That's still 2% of peering into ways of thinking that would otherwise be entirely inaccessible if you just stuck with things that are supposed to be rubber suits.

Quertus
2021-12-08, 02:27 AM
Personally, I don't like playable, alien-in-thought races. Because they'll be played by humans, which means played like humans. It also becomes much harder to rationalize why they're working together with people they cannot understand (or with whom the barriers to understanding are high). Because that's what alien-in-thought means--alien enough that mutual understanding is difficult if it's even possible.

So when Humans and Angels / Vorlons / Dragons / Humans with different cultures encounter one another, they should… genocidally exterminate one another? What is your alternative to "working together" here?

Batcathat
2021-12-08, 02:34 AM
I think the ideal (for me, at least. It's obviously very subjective) lies somewhere between "completely alien" and "human with funny ears and maybe a gimmick". At any rate, if the designers want people to only (or mainly) play humans, they should make that the rule rather than trying to indirectly curb it with level caps or unmotivated class restrictions.

Yora
2021-12-08, 02:36 AM
I'm not a fan of the Gygaxian Monster Zoo. There are a good number of really cool creatures that go all the way back to the AD&D monster manuals and earlier, and the A-list canon we have now has stood the test of time.
But it really should be a catalog to pick from. Taking the whole bunch as it is and dumping it into every camapign setting is too much.

Don't need 10 types of dragon, 6 types of giants, 10 types of barbaric hostile humanoids. Don't need 15 demons plus 15 devils (plus yugoloths plus slaads). Don't need drow, duergar, and derro.

A dozen intelligent monsters and maybe 20 to 30 monsters in total make for much richer fantasy worlds.

Satinavian
2021-12-08, 02:38 AM
People who wanted to play humans always could play humans. Trying to bring people who explicitely didn't want to play humans to do so anyway by making all alternatives severely hampered, was always a bad move.

The level caps were just another case of "Designers don't like what players do with their system so they make a heavy handed rules change to force their vision". It is the same with the original reason to introduce alignment, it is similar to their various attempts to get people to retire high level characters and it is in some ways worse than White Wolfs complaining that people played superheroes with fangs instead of following their vision of angst and despair.

For all the "build your own world" and "change the rules to your liking" there was always way too much emphasis in D&D that the default assumption should be a human centric world and all official settings are.


Personally i like playable non-humans that are alien but not that alien. Meaning that there are important differences for very specific aspects of life and society. It's easy to play that out without generally being unable to understand other PCs and NPCs.


Examples from same of the various reptile folk i have played :

- One species had females bury their eggs and then abandon them. The young ones joined the community at a later development state. So no family bounds whatsoever and no understanding of child rearing beyond taking some young apprentice in.

- Another species had sex change at a certain age. Which lead to a culture where all gender stereotypes where mixed and superseded with age stereotypes

- Playing cold blooded individuals could also mean portraying them hyperactive or drowsy depending on ambient temperature.


That is all stuff you can easily portray without being too alien or strange. And it still makes your character palpatibly different.

Actana
2021-12-08, 03:23 AM
I guess if I had any unpopular opinion is that if the GM is allowed to fudge dice to "create a better story", then the players should also be allowed to do it. Because nobody around the table is the single authority on what "the best story" means and the GM should not try to impose their idea of what that means over the players'.

Consequently, this leads to "nobody should fudge dice to begin with", but that's not nearly as unpopular of an opinion.

Yora
2021-12-08, 03:30 AM
When you start ignoring the dice because the bad outcome would not be fun, then when will you stop doing that and let something bad actually happen? Only when it doesn't really matter?

Mordante
2021-12-08, 04:00 AM
I guess if I had any unpopular opinion is that if the GM is allowed to fudge dice to "create a better story", then the players should also be allowed to do it. Because nobody around the table is the single authority on what "the best story" means and the GM should not try to impose their idea of what that means over the players'.

Consequently, this leads to "nobody should fudge dice to begin with", but that's not nearly as unpopular of an opinion.

When I DM I try to avoid unnecessary dice rolls. I die roll needs to add something. Not every skill check or social interaction requires a dice roll IMHO.

Lucas Yew
2021-12-08, 04:01 AM
Unpopular opinion: The "Small" sized ancestry/race/species/whatever should not be playable. Initially, it was the "unfortunate implications" with inter-species romance tropes that might happen as of RAW. Then after some other irks that I have trouble remembering clearly, that millionth-repeated scuffle on the 5E forums here about Small PCs and heavy weapon prohibition set up my mind on this.

As such, instead of making them small, their size (both in Lore and Crunch) should be treated as the opposite of 3E/5E Goliaths' Powerful Build. It'd probably work like benefits on the minimum size of space a PC could squeeze and pass through. And the lore-height might be around 70.7% of a human (0.50.5, BTW), instead of the proper Small size's 50%.

Zombimode
2021-12-08, 04:08 AM
But it really should be a catalog to pick from. Taking the whole bunch as it is and dumping it into every camapign setting is too much.

True. Though it should be mentioned that this is not the fault of the Monster Manuels but of published settings and the wordlbuilding of the GM's.

The monster manuels itself ARE a catalog.

NichG
2021-12-08, 04:11 AM
When you start ignoring the dice because the bad outcome would not be fun, then when will you stop doing that and let something bad actually happen? Only when it doesn't really matter?

Good incentive for figuring out how to make the bad outcomes fun though...

Actana
2021-12-08, 04:20 AM
When I DM I try to avoid unnecessary dice rolls. I die roll needs to add something. Not every skill check or social interaction requires a dice roll IMHO.

Basically, yes. Only roll when something will happen regardless of what the dice come up as, and also when you're willing to accept any result. If you're not willing to accept a specific result of the dice, you shouldn't roll (though you could also readjust the expectation of consequences of what those results mean as a group, into something more applicable.)

But this thread is about unpopular opinions, not "universally good practices". :smalltongue:

MoiMagnus
2021-12-08, 07:39 AM
Because nobody around the table is the single authority on what "the best story" means and the GM should not try to impose their idea of what that means over the players'.

I fully agree for campaigns. IME, it's reasonably frequent in one-shots for the Players to agree to give full authority to the GM for determining "what is the best story". There is something about one-shots where you're not really here to play a game, you're signing up for living through the fined-tuned experience that the GM prepared for you. (And it's is almost a prerequisite for games like Paranoia)


Basically, yes. Only roll when something will happen regardless of what the dice come up as, and also when you're willing to accept any result. If you're not willing to accept a specific result of the dice, you shouldn't roll (though you could also readjust the expectation of consequences of what those results mean as a group, into something more applicable.)

But this thread is about unpopular opinions, not "universally good practices". :smalltongue:

Interestingly, it's in appearance the opposite of the common GM advice of "when you hesitate between two resolutions, roll a die and ignore it if you don't like the result".

Quertus
2021-12-08, 10:35 AM
I guess if I had any unpopular opinion is that if the GM is allowed to fudge dice to "create a better story", then the players should also be allowed to do it. Because nobody around the table is the single authority on what "the best story" means and the GM should not try to impose their idea of what that means over the players'.

Consequently, this leads to "nobody should fudge dice to begin with", but that's not nearly as unpopular of an opinion.

I've stated this unpopular opinion before: I prefer "nobody fudges", but I'm more OK with players fudging dice than GMs doing so.

With the players fudging dice, you might actually get a collaborative story that's fun for everyone; with the GM fudging dice, you get a railroad that would be better suited to single author fiction.


I'm not a fan of the Gygaxian Monster Zoo. There are a good number of really cool creatures that go all the way back to the AD&D monster manuals and earlier, and the A-list canon we have now has stood the test of time.
But it really should be a catalog to pick from. Taking the whole bunch as it is and dumping it into every camapign setting is too much.

Don't need 10 types of dragon, 6 types of giants, 10 types of barbaric hostile humanoids. Don't need 15 demons plus 15 devils (plus yugoloths plus slaads). Don't need drow, duergar, and derro.

A dozen intelligent monsters and maybe 20 to 30 monsters in total make for much richer fantasy worlds.

I, OTOH, find it to be too little.

The story of the golden apple is intended to fill us with the same wonder we once had at encountering an apple.

How many species of animals are there IRL? That is, IMO, a minimal bar on how much wonder there should be in the world.

Also, if you add up the XP for every single monster (no "classes races" or "agree category Dragons to complicate things) in the 2e MM, how many XP is that? What level could you reach by encountering all of them? How many of each would it take to reach 20th level?

It feels unlikely to me that one could run a D&D character from 1-20, with just the full bestiary, let alone limited to 20-30 monsters, and still have that character feel the sense of wonder, that there's still a big, unexplored world out there, filled with "there be monsters". Let alone have the player run a second (or third, or…) character in the same world feel a sense of wonder.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-08, 11:04 AM
Unpopular opinion: The "Small" sized ancestry/race/species/whatever should not be playable. Agreed. I played a lot of halflings over the years, but I no longer will be doing that.
I have lost my willingness to suspend disbelief in that regard.

(I admit that a ghostwise halfling druid appeals to me, and they are adventuring because they are way too 'different' from everyone else back home - so they left due to being more or less a social pariah - but the number of campaigns I can be in is limited and the number of other class concepts I'd like to try are larger than my desire to do that).

The Glyphstone
2021-12-08, 11:14 AM
My favorite character I ever played, sadly in a short lived PvP, was also my most 'alien'. The cliff notes concept was a Far Realms entity summoned and bound into a host body, so while it was physically humanoid more or less, the aberrant psychology inside was an interesting challenge.

Another player commented that I must have taken 'Uncommon' as a native language, so in dialogue at least I pulled it off.

Morgaln
2021-12-08, 11:19 AM
I, OTOH, find it to be too little.

The story of the golden apple is intended to fill us with the same wonder we once had at encountering an apple.

How many species of animals are there IRL? That is, IMO, a minimal bar on how much wonder there should be in the world.

Also, if you add up the XP for every single monster (no "classes races" or "agree category Dragons to complicate things) in the 2e MM, how many XP is that? What level could you reach by encountering all of them? How many of each would it take to reach 20th level?

It feels unlikely to me that one could run a D&D character from 1-20, with just the full bestiary, let alone limited to 20-30 monsters, and still have that character feel the sense of wonder, that there's still a big, unexplored world out there, filled with "there be monsters". Let alone have the player run a second (or third, or…) character in the same world feel a sense of wonder.

Estimates on number of animal species range between 10 million and 100 million. Most of these are worms that look pretty much the same to everyone except a single digit number of specialists and/or microscopic in nature. Of the rest, the overwhelming majority are insects. Tiny insects. In fact, the biggest group is probably parasitic insects that prey on other insects.
For animals that are actually fit as combat encounters, you need to look at vertebrates almost exclusively (big exception: giant squids). There are about 75.000 known vertebrate species. About half of these are fish. The overwhelming majority of vertebrates are smaller than a house cat. By a lot. Despite what D&D monster manuals try to tell us, a house cat is not a combat encounter. Even if D&D stats tell us that it is a fearsome predator capable of taking out level 1 wizards without difficulty.

So what is actually left for possible combat encounters? It's a list you can actually put up fairly quickly:

Giant Squids
Sharks
Crocodiles
Bears
Large Cats
Large Canides
Elephants
Rhinos
Hippos
Buffaloes
Pigs
large flightless birds

and to a lesser extent:
Other large ungulates, like bovines, deer and large antelopes
Wolverines and honey badgers
Fur seals
Whales

If you want to stretch it, you could add large kangaroos

That's about twenty groups, although I probably forgot one or two (technically, human belongs on that list). There are multiple species in each of these groups, but they are variations on the same theme. And these span the whole world, as there's just not that much room for many large species of animals in a given area.
So 20-30 monsters would actually be fairly accurate compared to our world.

georgie_leech
2021-12-08, 12:00 PM
Another player commented that I must have taken 'Uncommon' as a native language, so in dialogue at least I pulled it off.

scribbles down for later

_______________________________


Add me to the pile of "alien-in-thought humanoids have potential that often isn't realised" GitP'ers. That said, even if it's not done well, I appreciate that they exist as an option. IMO, it's a useful exercise to put yourself in a different mental space; having something really obvious as a difference can make it easier to not just assume they think like you do. I think it's the kind of thing that can help build empathy: if you can put yourself in the headspace of someone/thing that's really different, then another person could be a lot easier to manage.

The trick is not assuming that you necessarily know all the relevant info on how another actual person thinks. That way lies much frustration.

The Glyphstone
2021-12-08, 12:36 PM
At least for that character, my take on it was - IIRC - their 'native' form was part of a larger collective-consciousness entity. So it was able to understand large groups like tribes, kingdoms, or organizations fairly easily, while the concept of individual sentience was extremely difficult except if presented as components of that larger group. And then if two individuals supposedly belonging to one group exhibited differences, it was utterly baffled. Speech-wise, it avoided every use of singular nouns and pronouns, everything was expressed in terms of plurals.

The fact that it was a Planescape game is the worst part, because that sort of bizarre PoV was RP gold in the Planes.

dafrca
2021-12-08, 01:12 PM
I'm not a fan of the Gygaxian Monster Zoo.

[snip]

A dozen intelligent monsters and maybe 20 to 30 monsters in total make for much richer fantasy worlds.
In a few of my games over time I have begun to do this both with monsters and what playable races will show up. Not because I dislike any single race or monster, but to try and build on a theme of feel.

MoiMagnus
2021-12-08, 01:44 PM
Unpopular opinion: The "Small" sized ancestry/race/species/whatever should not be playable.

I mostly agree. More precisely, I don't have problems with them being in supplementary books, together with races that have weird gamechanging abilities like flight. But I think the PHB would be better off without them.
[Admittedly, those "weird races" could also be in the PHB, clearly in an "optional rules" section, and I would be fine with it.]

Tanarii
2021-12-08, 02:04 PM
Relevant to races and playing to stereotypes for an alien mind:
https://theangrygm.com/making-race-and-culture-matter/

Milodiah
2021-12-08, 02:52 PM
As for player dice fudging, I really like the games that have the pool mechanics for occasionally boosting or rerolling the Big Damn Checks when pretty much everything is riding on the success of this roll. Shadowrun's Edge comes to mind, but there's plenty of other examples, like Deadlands' poker chips, whatever the thing the particular World of Darkness game you're playing calls them (rage, conviction, etc etc), and occasionally optional rulesets pop up in D&D, I seem to recall the most widespread one was Hero Points. Sure, its by definition not fudging because it's part of the system, but it gives people a third option between "Tell the truth and be ****ed" and "Cheat your dice".

It helps the GM too, because if by some decision or series of decisions by your players they've pretty much painted themselves into a corner where a couple die rolls stands between them and a TPK (such as suddenly being accosted by guards right as they're about to go through a big checkpoint, or the driver of the car only having one more chance to regain control before it goes off the winding mountain road), it can save the whole campaign without you having to either ass pull something or let the dice land as they will. And I guarantee if they get a critical success off those dice in this life or death moment, it'll have the whole table actually cheering, which is something any GM should appreciate.

Xervous
2021-12-08, 03:31 PM
As for player dice fudging, I really like the games that have the pool mechanics for occasionally boosting or rerolling the Big Damn Checks when pretty much everything is riding on the success of this roll. Shadowrun's Edge comes to mind, but there's plenty of other examples, like Deadlands' poker chips, whatever the thing the particular World of Darkness game you're playing calls them (rage, conviction, etc etc), and occasionally optional rulesets pop up in D&D, I seem to recall the most widespread one was Hero Points. Sure, its by definition not fudging because it's part of the system, but it gives people a third option between "Tell the truth and be ****ed" and "Cheat your dice".

It helps the GM too, because if by some decision or series of decisions by your players they've pretty much painted themselves into a corner where a couple die rolls stands between them and a TPK (such as suddenly being accosted by guards right as they're about to go through a big checkpoint, or the driver of the car only having one more chance to regain control before it goes off the winding mountain road), it can save the whole campaign without you having to either ass pull something or let the dice land as they will. And I guarantee if they get a critical success off those dice in this life or death moment, it'll have the whole table actually cheering, which is something any GM should appreciate.

My players have learned to fear GM luck. “Wait I thought I tied with an 8, why is it 11 now?” Monsters are going to use all their rerolls if you let them, try to make sure they’re defensive rerolls.

I’ve had players throw rerolls at healing pets and hirelings. I’ve had them throw rerolls at cheating in gambling with fae. They’ve averted death and snatched victory a time or three, but the fondest memories seem to be of the random moments they decided should matter.

Quertus
2021-12-08, 04:16 PM
Estimates on number of animal species range between 10 million and 100 million. Most of these are worms that look pretty much the same to everyone except a single digit number of specialists and/or microscopic in nature. Of the rest, the overwhelming majority are insects. Tiny insects. In fact, the biggest group is probably parasitic insects that prey on other insects.
For animals that are actually fit as combat encounters, you need to look at vertebrates almost exclusively (big exception: giant squids). There are about 75.000 known vertebrate species. About half of these are fish. The overwhelming majority of vertebrates are smaller than a house cat. By a lot. Despite what D&D monster manuals try to tell us, a house cat is not a combat encounter. Even if D&D stats tell us that it is a fearsome predator capable of taking out level 1 wizards without difficulty.

So what is actually left for possible combat encounters? It's a list you can actually put up fairly quickly:

Giant Squids
Sharks
Crocodiles
Bears
Large Cats
Large Canides
Elephants
Rhinos
Hippos
Buffaloes
Pigs
large flightless birds

and to a lesser extent:
Other large ungulates, like bovines, deer and large antelopes
Wolverines and honey badgers
Fur seals
Whales

If you want to stretch it, you could add large kangaroos

That's about twenty groups, although I probably forgot one or two (technically, human belongs on that list). There are multiple species in each of these groups, but they are variations on the same theme. And these span the whole world, as there's just not that much room for many large species of animals in a given area.
So 20-30 monsters would actually be fairly accurate compared to our world.

Wow. Sweet post.

I wasn't aiming for "combat encounter" with creatures IRL, only "opportunity for wow". That that generally gets translated into combat in D&D confuses the matter slightly.

For versimilitude, for number of things that could threaten a human?

Lemme see… off the top of my head…

Porcupines
Foxes
Skunks
Armadillo (less "combat", more "disease")
Turtles
Alligators
Snakes
"Flighty" birds
Goats
Crabs
Apes (etc)

For insects, I *know* humans have lost combat encounters with…

Bees
Ants

And that's not counting natural disasters that get translated into creatures, like storms, tornados, mudslides,

Or human-derivable creatures, like skeletons, ghosts, and zombies.

Or ancient creatures, like dinosaurs, wooly mammoth, sabertooth tigers, etc.

Or just how many individual creatures some of those groupings represent. Meaning that all the dozens of beholders and Beholder kin count as one entry, same as the dozens of giants or dozens of dragons. And I'd say that, if you've had your teeth kicked in by a horse, seeing a giraffe is more different than two colors of Dragon.

But, again, I was looking at opportunity for "wow", not "threat ecology". And, for wow, 20-30 monsters just doesn't seem to cut it, IMO.

dafrca
2021-12-08, 04:52 PM
But, again, I was looking at opportunity for "wow", not "threat ecology". And, for wow, 20-30 monsters just doesn't seem to cut it, IMO.

THis is just me and my thinking, in other words pure opinion:

I think of it this way, it is not that there is only 30-40 monsters in the world, there are only 30-40 monsters in this small part of the world where this campaign is going to play out. I look to build a list that fits into the feel and setting. By setting I do not mean Greyhawk, rather I mean jungle or underdark or desert or snow covered mountains.

I mean think about it with this math in mind: Game Group plays once a week for 3 hours each session, except a couple of holidays. So let's say 45 sessions. How many of those 2000 monsters can fit in those 135 hours? Heck, how many of those 135 hours are monster encounters? I bet not all of them. Do we ever run into the same mook monster more than once, well yes. And the BBG or Sub-boss monsters? By the time you play out the year you maybe could have used more than the 30-40 monsters on the list, but not by a lot.

Just a different way to think of the need for thousands of monsters in my opinion. :smallsmile:

Easy e
2021-12-08, 05:33 PM
I guess if I had any unpopular opinion is that if the GM is allowed to fudge dice to "create a better story", then the players should also be allowed to do it. Because nobody around the table is the single authority on what "the best story" means and the GM should not try to impose their idea of what that means over the players'.


I am going to go one step farther. The GM should never have to roll a dice, and only adjudicate outcomes based on player level success on their tests.

However, that would require a HUGE change to the structures and conventions to D&D.

Milodiah
2021-12-08, 05:51 PM
You know, this makes me remember that one thing I've always found a little odd (understandable, but still odd fridge-logic wise) is that there's so many fantastical beasts and creatures of legend in fantasy settings, but at the same time pretty much all Earth creatures are represented as-is. I know people mostly want them just because they're something they understand and don't need to read a whole monster manual entry just to say "oh so it's like a deer", but it kinda starts edging on being immersion breaking if you really sit there and think about it.

If these fantasy creatures are truly the hyper-dangerous apex predators they're depicted as, they'd surely have out-competed the mundane apex predators like bears, or jaguars, or birds of prey. And the depiction of them being just "higher up the food chain" than the mundane predators that some games claim makes no sense whatsoever. From a zoological standpoint there's zero incentive for a predator to consistently target other predators for nutritional purposes when the herbivores said other predators prey on are less dangerous, more numerous, and have the same amount of meat. Sure, there starts to be other behavioral reasons, like territorial encroachment or food shortage, but again, those are situations where the "lesser" predator has to adapt or be driven to extinction.

Which brings us to the fact that almost all "prey" animals on Earth have very specific adaptations that are intended to give them as much chance against predators as they can get. Herd behavior, camouflage, speed and stamina, sensory capabilities, etc. are all things that were evolved specifically to increase survival odds against particular predators in particular environments, but this huge raft of new predators isn't being addressed at all. If they're constantly being preyed upon by magical beasts that can turn invisible, then perhaps antelopes would evolve inherent magic-detection senses since their eyes aren't helping them anymore. Perhaps if there are rocs and other mega-birds capable of snatching up five hundred pound quadrupeds as if they were rodents, we'd start seeing spiky porcupine-like quills on wild horses to discourage that. If there are spiders the size of Volkswagens who weave webs big enough to catch birds, we might see rats with specially adapted paws that allow them to run up and down said web without getting stuck, to consume the leftover carcasses after the giant spider finished doing its creepy liquefy-and-drink thing. And maybe even that'd be an example of mutualism, where the spider allows these web-rats to do their thing because otherwise the slowly growing wall of dead birds hanging between those two trees would start cluing in other animals that there's a trap there.

I get that at the end of the day, most of these new creatures are as dangerous and aggressive as they are because they exist to be fought by the players in an encounter. That's the Doylist aspect of it, anyway. But it's some missed worldbuilding that there aren't interesting and unique animals all throughout the ecosystem, doing their thing.




I am going to go one step farther. The GM should never have to roll a dice, and only adjudicate outcomes based on player level success on their tests.

However, that would require a HUGE change to the structures and conventions to D&D.

You know, that's kinda what Dungeon World goes for. A lot of mechanical things on the GM side are actually embedded into the margins-of-success system for players rolling their dice. There's a lot of emphasis on middle-of-the-road rolls being successes, but with consequences, chosen by either the player or the GM. It also sort of blurs the line between "whose turn it is" because, for example, damage can be both taken and dealt at pretty much any point; the monsters get to hit you back if you roll a low attack or choose to leave yourself exposed to deal more damage, and you can also deal damage to the enemy as an optional outcome of a good defense roll.

Quertus
2021-12-08, 06:38 PM
THis is just me and my thinking, in other words pure opinion:

I think of it this way, it is not that there is only 30-40 monsters in the world, there are only 30-40 monsters in this small part of the world where this campaign is going to play out. I look to build a list that fits into the feel and setting. By setting I do not mean Greyhawk, rather I mean jungle or underdark or desert or snow covered mountains.

I mean think about it with this math in mind: Game Group plays once a week for 3 hours each session, except a couple of holidays. So let's say 45 sessions. How many of those 2000 monsters can fit in those 135 hours? Heck, how many of those 135 hours are monster encounters? I bet not all of them. Do we ever run into the same mook monster more than once, well yes. And the BBG or Sub-boss monsters? By the time you play out the year you maybe could have used more than the 30-40 monsters on the list, but not by a lot.

Just a different way to think of the need for thousands of monsters in my opinion. :smallsmile:

That makes a lot of sense. And means that when the PCs travel outside their familiar territory, they are once again filled with awe. As would Players of PCs in a second campaign, located elsewhere in the same world.

That said, I was talking at the world level, not the local beasts in a single locale. 20-30 feels plenty for “what you can encounter in these parts”.

Pex
2021-12-08, 06:48 PM
I'm not a fan of the Gygaxian Monster Zoo. There are a good number of really cool creatures that go all the way back to the AD&D monster manuals and earlier, and the A-list canon we have now has stood the test of time.
But it really should be a catalog to pick from. Taking the whole bunch as it is and dumping it into every camapign setting is too much.

Don't need 10 types of dragon, 6 types of giants, 10 types of barbaric hostile humanoids. Don't need 15 demons plus 15 devils (plus yugoloths plus slaads). Don't need drow, duergar, and derro.

A dozen intelligent monsters and maybe 20 to 30 monsters in total make for much richer fantasy worlds.

Not needed in the sense the game does not fall apart without them, but they are an attempt to bring back excitement. It can be boring to fight a monster for the Xteenth time playing in your Yth campaign. For myself I know I'm sick and tired of fighting owlbears, trolls, drow, and mindflayers. There's also the matter of experienced players know the monster statistics through either repeated combat or are DM's themselves. It is easier to take a monster and tweak it than create something completely new.

Hytheter
2021-12-08, 11:04 PM
I am going to go one step farther. The GM should never have to roll a dice, and only adjudicate outcomes based on player level success on their tests.

What if I like rolling dice? The GM is a player too and they get to share in the fun.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-09, 12:03 AM
What if I like rolling dice? The GM is a player too and they get to share in the fun.

Agreed. The GM isn't there just as a game engine.

Ignimortis
2021-12-09, 01:20 AM
I like rolling dice as a GM. It works out much better than rolling dice as a player!

Seriously, though, I have insane dice luck as a GM and pretty poor rolls as a player. And it's not really the quantity compensating, I have literally rolled statistically improbable high results in rows as a GM. It doesn't discriminate - whether I'm rolling for a player's summon or an antagonist, they all usually get good rolls.

Morgaln
2021-12-09, 04:06 AM
But, again, I was looking at opportunity for "wow", not "threat ecology". And, for wow, 20-30 monsters just doesn't seem to cut it, IMO.

That is true, but from what I understood, Yora was talking about creatures in the monster manuals. If something isn't supposed to be a combat encounter, it shouldn't be in the monster manual. A GM can fill their world with as many songbirds, frogs, mice and other creatures as they want, those creatures just don't need stats in an official book.


As for player dice fudging, I really like the games that have the pool mechanics for occasionally boosting or rerolling the Big Damn Checks when pretty much everything is riding on the success of this roll. Shadowrun's Edge comes to mind, but there's plenty of other examples, like Deadlands' poker chips, whatever the thing the particular World of Darkness game you're playing calls them (rage, conviction, etc etc), and occasionally optional rulesets pop up in D&D, I seem to recall the most widespread one was Hero Points. Sure, its by definition not fudging because it's part of the system, but it gives people a third option between "Tell the truth and be ****ed" and "Cheat your dice".

It helps the GM too, because if by some decision or series of decisions by your players they've pretty much painted themselves into a corner where a couple die rolls stands between them and a TPK (such as suddenly being accosted by guards right as they're about to go through a big checkpoint, or the driver of the car only having one more chance to regain control before it goes off the winding mountain road), it can save the whole campaign without you having to either ass pull something or let the dice land as they will. And I guarantee if they get a critical success off those dice in this life or death moment, it'll have the whole table actually cheering, which is something any GM should appreciate.

In that regard, I recently GM'd my first session in the Sentinels Comic RPG. The game has a very interesting mechanic to avoid failure; when a roll would be a failure, they player can take a twist. If they do so, the roll succeeds, but at a price. Something else in the scene goes wrong. E. g.

You managed to climb the wall, but alerted the villain to your presence in the process.
You caught that falling piece of debris and kept the children from being crushed, but you sprained a wrist doing so.
You caught the person falling from the building, but you knocked over something and caused a fire.
You kept the car from going over a cliff, but you ripped your mask and your secret identity is compromised.

Not only does it allow the players to succeed whenever it really matters, it also keeps the scene moving forward and keeps introducing new and unexpected complications that keep everyone on their toes. For a superhero system that is supposed to emulate comic books, this is highly appropriate. Also, players are encouraged to suggest their own twists whenever one is needed, so it's not complications imposed by the GM but a collaborative effort to keep the game interesting and fun.

Yora
2021-12-09, 04:23 AM
Not needed in the sense the game does not fall apart without them, but they are an attempt to bring back excitement.
Back? Why was it ever gone?

Vahnavoi
2021-12-09, 04:41 AM
When you start ignoring the dice because the bad outcome would not be fun, then when will you stop doing that and let something bad actually happen? Only when it doesn't really matter?

If the goal is to make a good story, and everyone at the table has even a tiny bit of trust in what others at the table consider a good story, you can throw the dice straight into trash and never pay attention to them again. People who agree that bad things occasionally need to happen for a good story will just let those things happen.

That's not D&D, but that's because the use of dice in D&D does not originate from story games. It originates from wargames, where chaos of physical die rolls was used as simplified model for chaos present on a real battlefield. The primary function of dice was to simulate something - if you don't know or don't care about that angle (hint: modern D&D largely does not), stop to think and ask, why are you rolling in the first place?

Yora
2021-12-09, 04:56 AM
if you don't know or don't care about that angle (hint: modern D&D largely does not)

Doesn't care, or doesn't know? :smalltongue:

Satinavian
2021-12-09, 05:02 AM
If the goal is to make a good storyThat is rarely actually the case for RPG groups. And for those who want that, there are specialized systems supporting this narrative angle.

Batcathat
2021-12-09, 05:17 AM
That is rarely actually the case for RPG groups. And for those who want that, there are specialized systems supporting this narrative angle.

I think that depends on how we define "a good story" in this context. A good story in a dramturgical sense for an outside observer? Sure, that's rare. A good story that's enjoyable for those who experience it? That seems like it'd be pretty common.

Lacco
2021-12-09, 05:17 AM
If the goal is to make a good story, and everyone at the table has even a tiny bit of trust in what others at the table consider a good story, you can throw the dice straight into trash and never pay attention to them again. People who agree that bad things occasionally need to happen for a good story will just let those things happen.

That's not D&D, but that's because the use of dice in D&D does not originate from story games. It originates from wargames, where chaos of physical die rolls was used as simplified model for chaos present on a real battlefield. The primary function of dice was to simulate something - if you don't know or don't care about that angle (hint: modern D&D largely does not), stop to think and ask, why are you rolling in the first place?

What if the goal is to have a good game?

Vahnavoi
2021-12-09, 05:47 AM
Doesn't care, or doesn't know? :smalltongue:

Yes. To both. Or can you name anyone on 5th edition's design time who both wanted to up the simulation angle and has any merit at designing simulations?

---


That is rarely actually the case for RPG groups. And for those who want that, there are specialized systems supporting this narrative angle.

I know, hence the argument begins with "if".

---


What if the goal is to have a good game?

Then I'd tell you to look at some of the thousands of games that don't use dice and ask again: why are you rolling in the first place?

Lacco
2021-12-09, 06:48 AM
Then I'd tell you to look at some of the thousands of games that don't use dice and ask again: why are you rolling in the first place?

Let's take a look at the opposite: why not roll? Why not use game mechanics? Why would people like stating "my character attempts this" and rolling dice instead of just stating "my character does this"?

I'm not against diceless or mechanic-less games - I like some of them and have spent most of my youth playing those.

I'm asking what merit do you find in having mechanics/dice... from your point of view. And answers like 'look at the games and ask why you are rolling' don't help.

Quertus
2021-12-09, 06:56 AM
If the goal is to make a good story,

ask, why are you rolling in the first place?


What if the goal is to have a good game?


Then I'd tell you to look at some of the thousands of games that don't use dice and ask again: why are you rolling in the first place?

"The game" isn't "rolling dice", it's "making choices".

Rolling dice as a way to arbitrate the results of those choices adds unpredictability, adding the requirement for contingency plans / revising plans on the fly based on success / failure / degree thereof of particular actions (from all sides).

That's my take, at least. Thoughts?

Vahnavoi
2021-12-09, 07:10 AM
@Lacco: asking me for my personal reasons to use or not use dice is not a replacement for asking why you, yourself, roll dice in the first place. Whatever my answer is can only serve as contrast for yours.

Personally, I'm largely content playing freeform play-by-post games at the moment, meaning I don't use dice. For my tabletop games, the primary function of dice is the same as it was in wargames: a cheap model for emergent chaos in complex systems. The two most important functions being modeling weather and wandering encounters. Public health concerns put my tabletop games on a break and I'm not sure if I'll continue to use the same system. One of the alternatives I'm considering is STALKER / FLOW, which is diceless. Or crafting my own system based on some other activity than rolling dice.

Xervous
2021-12-09, 08:04 AM
If there’s a specific way I must have some things turn out I’m liable to narrate it. When that’s the majority of stuff I’m writing a walking tour, but I feel that’s a great disservice to what D&D can be.

Offloading some of the world to dice frees up GM mental processing power for other stuff. The dice act as an external inspiration for the GM and players alike, one that can add variety to simple events or suggest a grand turning point the group might not face conceived of on their own. The dice provide a moment of authentic suspense wherein the players generally know their action is possible but the outcome not predetermined.

Cluedrew
2021-12-09, 08:49 AM
On Fantasy Races: It is a bit late but since I accidently started it I want to throw one last thought. There is room for fantasy races that are close to humans. But a lot of them feel closer to humans than humans are to each other. Like what is the difference between a dwarf and a surly human miner?


But it's some missed worldbuilding that there aren't interesting and unique animals all throughout the ecosystem, doing their thing.Go too far down that path and then you realise the trees have to have force fields or the world doesn't make sense. The chain reactions seeming innocent world building decisions can have is crazy.

Xervous
2021-12-09, 08:54 AM
On Fantasy Races: It is a bit late but since I accidently started it I want to throw one last thought. There is room for fantasy races that are close to humans. But a lot of them feel closer to humans than humans are to each other. Like what is the difference between a dwarf and a surly human miner?

Go too far down that path and then you realise the trees have to have force fields or the world doesn't make sense. The chain reactions seeming innocent world building decisions can have is crazy.

I’m sorry but your burrowing magma dragons invalidate this layout for your tectonic plates. This prevents the formation of the mountain range that protects the rainforest where the botanicals for the prophet’s favorite gin developed. So dwarves wouldn’t be known for drinking.

HidesHisEyes
2021-12-09, 08:54 AM
People who wanted to play humans always could play humans. Trying to bring people who explicitely didn't want to play humans to do so anyway by making all alternatives severely hampered, was always a bad move.

The level caps were just another case of "Designers don't like what players do with their system so they make a heavy handed rules change to force their vision". It is the same with the original reason to introduce alignment, it is similar to their various attempts to get people to retire high level characters and it is in some ways worse than White Wolfs complaining that people played superheroes with fangs instead of following their vision of angst and despair.

For all the "build your own world" and "change the rules to your liking" there was always way too much emphasis in D&D that the default assumption should be a human centric world and all official settings are.


Personally i like playable non-humans that are alien but not that alien. Meaning that there are important differences for very specific aspects of life and society. It's easy to play that out without generally being unable to understand other PCs and NPCs.


Examples from same of the various reptile folk i have played :

- One species had females bury their eggs and then abandon them. The young ones joined the community at a later development state. So no family bounds whatsoever and no understanding of child rearing beyond taking some young apprentice in.

- Another species had sex change at a certain age. Which lead to a culture where all gender stereotypes where mixed and superseded with age stereotypes

- Playing cold blooded individuals could also mean portraying them hyperactive or drowsy depending on ambient temperature.


That is all stuff you can easily portray without being too alien or strange. And it still makes your character palpatibly different.

Personally I think we have to reckon with the fact that D&D nowadays has a big list of otherworldly races to choose from and, ime, in most campaigns, most players are going to want to engage with that side of the game. Most times that I’ve played D&D the party has consisted of something like an elf, two tieflings, a dragonborn, a genasi and a token human (usually me). I think it’s best to lean into this and say your setting is populated by many such beings all going about their business. I call it the “Mos Eisley Cantina model”. What’s the alternative? This is the game we’re playing, but this significantly large swathe of the options it gives you is not allowed at my table. Nah, if I want to play a human-centric grounded world then I will suggest playing a different game, personally.

Mastikator
2021-12-09, 09:25 AM
What if I like rolling dice? The GM is a player too and they get to share in the fun.

If you want to roll for something where a natural 1 will destroy your story that you the GM worked on then that is your prerogative. That's what's being discussed here right? When a dice roll can destroy the story then maybe don't call for a roll, unless you want to gamble the story.

But if you do, don't fudge it, roll it openly. And the campaign? If it dies, it dies.

Easy e
2021-12-09, 10:23 AM
If there’s a specific way I must have some things turn out I’m liable to narrate it. When that’s the majority of stuff I’m writing a walking tour, but I feel that’s a great disservice to what D&D can be.

Offloading some of the world to dice frees up GM mental processing power for other stuff. The dice act as an external inspiration for the GM and players alike, one that can add variety to simple events or suggest a grand turning point the group might not face conceived of on their own. The dice provide a moment of authentic suspense wherein the players generally know their action is possible but the outcome not predetermined.

As Vahnovi points out, dice are just an easy way to add unpredictability or outcomes to actions. You could just as easily add turning over cards, flipping coins, picking up sticks, Jenga towers, paper-rock-scissors, flow charts, etc. All of that would "off-load" GM mental processing.

That is why to me, all Role-playing rules are "fluff" beyond answering the core RPG question, "Can my character do X?" Once you have a mechanic that can answer that question, you have an RPG. The actual mechanic used to answer that question is secondary.

That is why if you really want to "reduce GM processing power" you should be stripping your game down to the core RPG question, instead of bolting on a bunch of extras. Less is more in this case as stripping out a lot of pointless mechanics leaves the GM to process a lot more on interactions, complications, hooks, and challenges.

If you look really closely, you will see that to answer the "Core RPG Question", you do not even need a GM. Hence solo-play RPGs, Fighting Fantasy books, Choose Your Own Adventures, etc. etc. etc. That is the ultimate "Off-load of GM processing power". :)

Of course, these ideas are controversial to say the least.

Milodiah
2021-12-09, 11:00 AM
As Vahnovi points out, dice are just an easy way to add unpredictability or outcomes to actions. You could just as easily add turning over cards, flipping coins, picking up sticks, Jenga towers, paper-rock-scissors, flow charts, etc. All of that would "off-load" GM mental processing.

That is why to me, all Role-playing rules are "fluff" beyond answering the core RPG question, "Can my character do X?" Once you have a mechanic that can answer that question, you have an RPG. The actual mechanic used to answer that question is secondary.

That is why if you really want to "reduce GM processing power" you should be stripping your game down to the core RPG question, instead of bolting on a bunch of extras. Less is more in this case as stripping out a lot of pointless mechanics leaves the GM to process a lot more on interactions, complications, hooks, and challenges.

If you look really closely, you will see that to answer the "Core RPG Question", you do not even need a GM. Hence solo-play RPGs, Fighting Fantasy books, Choose Your Own Adventures, etc. etc. etc. That is the ultimate "Off-load of GM processing power". :)

Of course, these ideas are controversial to say the least.

It does rather become interesting to me that many people go out of their way to seek out mechanics that go far beyond "can my character do x", and I don't just mean crunch-favoring systems like GURPS; because at its core GURPS is still trying to answer that question, it's just very fond of detailed breakdowns of the answer.

I'm referring to things like 3.5 and Pathfinder where all the things like feat trees, optimized builds, etc are clearly no longer trying to answer that question, but instead provide an entirely new set of questions to answer. It may have started with things like "is my character good at fighting with a weapon in each hand" to which the answer is "well do you have the Two Weapon Fighting feat?" but it's clearly become far more than just that, especially as Pathfinder picks up where 3.5 left off in terms of feat trees, point pools, and other stuff that's less an abstraction of real-world concepts and more an entirely new set of rules. And though I never played 4th edition, I understand that it rather took that concept to its logical conclusion.

I almost feel like there becomes a point where it deserves a different name than "role playing game", because from what I have read of 4e, one of my friend's descriptions seems really true. It's at its core a small unit tactics game, and it probably would have done better without trying to make it be the next Dungeons and Dragons (critically, of course, sales and popularity wise it's a no brainer to call it D&D especially since their attempt at providing more mini wargaming focused gameplay with the Miniatures Handbook in 3.5 kinda withered on the vine).

It has this weird delineation between in and out of combat, where the nature of your character in terms of roleplay and the nature of your character in terms of tactical role may or may not align or overlap. The fact that your rogue character is a Charisma built social character outside of combat may or may not even matter in combat, because you could just as easily have leaned into the Sneak Attack system or combat maneuvers rather than, say, pursuing the feinting and intimidating combat mechanics that might make more sense to the charismatic character. Overall, I just feel like the race/class/level/feats system has taken on a life of its own and sculpted the very world of the game, which is why things like Order of the Stick even exist.

Not that it's a bad thing at all, I'm getting ready for a Pathfinder game right now and I'm really excited about it (partially just cuz it's the first time I'm gonna be a player after like...three and a half straight years of GMing). I'm just saying it's its own beast entirely, and approaching the mechanics with the idea of "it should do nothing more than quickly and succinctly tell me if I succeed or fail in my current activity" is gonna end strangely because that's clearly not what it's been built to do. Anyone who just rolls to attack, rolls damage if it hits, and passes their turn is probably going to hate it, even though that's the stripped down core of what combat is. It's expected at a certain point that your combat turn is going to be activating Combat Expertise, using your Swordplay Style to make a standard action attack without the combat expertise penalty, using Cleave to hit another enemy, casting Grace to use your move action to retreat without provoking attacks of opportunity, etc.

(Also I'm sure somebody could point out that's a totally sub optimal build in the example but that kinda drives home the point I'm making, we're so focused on the specifics of whether or not it's smart to mix the Combat Expertise and Power Attack feat trees that we're clearly no longer viewing the system as a means of resolving success or failure but as a game in and of itself)

Xervous
2021-12-09, 11:14 AM
the idea of "it should do nothing more than quickly and succinctly tell me if I succeed or fail in my current activity" is gonna end strangely because that's clearly not what it's been built to do.

What we have here is an intent which can be used to guide the design of a system. Knowing both the intent and the system we can attempt objective analysis of how well the game satisfies the intent. Analyze a game through the wrong intent and you’ll have answers on the level of “the fork is terrible because you can’t use it to eat soup.”

Easy e
2021-12-09, 11:18 AM
Indeed.

The reason for the direction for this growth is pretty simple. There are a few types of choices players have to make in an RPG (or most games). They have to make tactical choices, which are how they plan to handle the immediate activity in front of them. They also have to make Strategic choices, about what they are going to bring to the table in the first place. Strategic choices influence what you can do at the tactical level, therefore a game that offers a lot of Strategic choice is perceived as having "more to offer".

In addition, a game that offers a lot of strategic choice allows players to interact with it 24/7. A great deal of tactical choice is only interacted with during play. Therefore, a game with a high degree of "strategic choice" is perceived as superior. Plus, a not insignificant percentage of players really like breaking it all down and analyzing the "strategic choices" more than engaging in the tactical choices.

This board is a great example. Think of how many threads are about "optimized characters". Now think about how many threads we see about sharing a "gaming story" of the choices they had to make on the table?

RPGs should start with "Can my character do X" as a game. As a Product, they have to build in more, and more Strategic Choices. Eventually, the Strategic choices will create enough bloat, where the game requires too much "Player Processing Power" to run. That is when the publisher tries to re-boot it all in a new edition and start the cash cycle all over again.

Chess is a game, while D&D is a product; by this thought process. We see this in board games, card games, wargames, and RPGs.

Of course, this is way off subject. But it is interesting to think about why D&D requires so much "Player Processing Power" to run, when the basic question is "Can my character do X?" and why players often WANT more chrome and layers of effort in games.

Milodiah
2021-12-09, 11:19 AM
What we have here is an intent which can be used to guide the design of a system. Knowing both the intent and the system we can attempt objective analysis of how well the game satisfies the intent. Analyze a game through the wrong intent and you’ll have answers on the level of “the fork is terrible because you can’t use it to eat soup.”

Right, since there was only one lens provided by the comment I offered my thoughts on said lens. Through that particular lens Phoenix Command is literally the worst example of a game ever created and the people who made it should have their knees broken, but anyone who's read even two sentences of it could tell you their intent never was to adhere to that expressed intent; they wanted to create a game that modeled things as accurately as it could, even if that meant it required god damn graphing calculators. Whether or not you personally think that's a good intent to build a game on isn't relevant, because someone else's opinion that's different is just as valid.

It's a problem I kinda see a lot in RPG communities, and it cropped up a lot in the last thread. All systems are independent frameworks, and really the only way they can be objectively, inherently "good" or "bad" function-wise is whether or not the framework is internally consistent. It's why I always frame my statements as opinions, since I've developed a hell of a lot of those over the years from playing a lot of different systems but fully concede that those opinions were developed from my own priorities which are different, be it slightly or massively, from other people's. I personally really dislike the "gestalt health" thing that games like Dirty World use, where all "injuries" to your character (physical, mental, social, etc) are tracked on one bar, but there's obviously people out there who enjoy that mechanic, and neither of us can truly say the other is wrong (as much as we want to sometimes).

MoiMagnus
2021-12-09, 11:21 AM
If you want to roll for something where a natural 1 will destroy your story that you the GM worked on then that is your prerogative. That's what's being discussed here right? When a dice roll can destroy the story then maybe don't call for a roll, unless you want to gamble the story.

But if you do, don't fudge it, roll it openly. And the campaign? If it dies, it dies.

Or roll for a lesser stake. Want to roll about a check that if it would fails, would destroy the campaign. Make the same roll but treat a failed roll as "success BUT a few bad consequences are added into the mix" (one that can always apply is "a greater resource/time cost required for the task than initially expected") and a successful roll as "complete success".

Rolling a d6 (or a d100, or whatever which is not a d20) for the check when it's a public check is also a great way as a GM to communicate that "this roll is not a check that follow standard rules, and the GM probably hasn't decided yet what each result would mean"

Easy e
2021-12-09, 11:23 AM
Intent is an excellent point as well.

If you want to play a WWII game, you can choose between the Battle of North Africa, Advanced Squad Leader, O Group, Overlord, Memoir '44, and Bolt Action (as well as many others) and all of those games will play very differently!

However, the "highest level of intent" of all of them is to provide some model for playing a WWII game!

Milodiah
2021-12-09, 11:30 AM
Intent is an excellent point as well.

If you wan to play a WWII game, you can choose between the Battle of North Africa, Advanced Squad Leader, O Group, and Bolt Action (as well as many others) and all of those games will play very differently!

However, the "highest level of intent" of all of them is to provide some model for playing a WWII game!

Yeah, there's a pretty amorphous set of implied ideas that's often attached to the setting and/or system of a game that people kinda need to be able to identify if they want to be able to compare and contrast things. A d20 Modern WWII game will handle much differently than a GURPS WWII game, even if both of them are literally depicting, ie Staff Sergeant Smith and his squadmates in the exact same French village in the Bocage on June 19th, 1944. They strongly color the way the game will go, and honestly probably color the entirety of the story. Neither system is "best" for said WWII game, it's a matter of what you want out of it. Hell, it'll even be a much different story if you decided that Smith and squad are level 10 versus level 2 in d20, or if they're 100 or 300 point characters in GURPS. There's so many moving parts in RPGs that I try to restrict my critiques to specific things, like "I prefer the verisimilitude of GURPS for this in that taking an 8mm Mauser round center mass drops a dude most of the time, compared to d20 Modern where he's much more likely to survive and probably even be unfazed by it. That way the players roleplay more believably as ordinary soldiers who are very averse to getting shot, instead of being action heroes who shrug off bullets."

Note that I didn't say anywhere that the other as a worse system in generalizing terms, just that in my opinion I prefer the other for (insert reason).

Quertus
2021-12-09, 11:35 AM
If you want to roll for something where a natural 1 will destroy your story that you the GM worked on then that is your prerogative. That's what's being discussed here right? When a dice roll can destroy the story then maybe don't call for a roll, unless you want to gamble the story.

But if you do, don't fudge it, roll it openly. And the campaign? If it dies, it dies.

"If you want to roll for something where a natural 1 well destroy your story that you, the players worked on, then…"

I'm seeing this as an argument against dice, or against stories, or against stories fragile enough to be destroyed by a single bad roll, or possibly an argument against work (ah, work, ever the bane of the drinking class), rather than an argument specific to GMs rolling dice.

Xervous
2021-12-09, 11:36 AM
Intent is an excellent point as well.

If you wan to play a WWII game, you can choose between the Battle of North Africa, Advanced Squad Leader, O Group, and Bolt Action (as well as many others) and all of those games will play very differently!

However, the "highest level of intent" of all of them is to provide some model for playing a WWII game!

A WWII game? I’ll style it off Catch-22 and run it with the rules of Paranoia. Oh you meant you wanted (wargaming/politics/espionage) and for it to be (realistic/tragic/hopeful)?

This brings me to an interesting thought, how many lines would be generally sufficient for clarifying just what it is a system is trying to provide?

Easy e
2021-12-09, 11:38 AM
A WWII game? I’ll style it off Catch-22 and run it with the rules of Paranoia. Oh you meant you wanted (wargaming/politics/espionage) and for it to be (realistic/tragic/hopeful)?


Indeed, the ones a listed are just "Wargame" versions of WWII and I only scratched the surfaced!




This brings me to an interesting thought, how many lines would be generally sufficient for clarifying just what it is a system is trying to provide?

Judging by the threads on this forum..... all the lines.

:)

Telok
2021-12-09, 11:40 AM
By a lot. Despite what D&D monster manuals try to tell us, a house cat is not a combat encounter. Even if D&D stats tell us that it is a fearsome predator capable of taking out level 1 wizards without difficulty.

Depends on the cat. Most house cats are probably not. A stray my partner's family adopted a long time ago, with muscles that broke the vet's needles and jumped off the roof to attack large dogs at least twice... Anything about 5+ kilos of angry-angry with claws and/or enough bite/stomp/clobber to break bones is a combat encounter.

Just because D&D can't handle non-lethal combat & fear worth a damn and ditched morale rules isn't a reason for everyone to auto-win bare handed against a pair of angry swans or a zombie rat.



This brings me to an interesting thought, how many lines would be generally sufficient for clarifying just what it is a system is trying to provide?


About half a page for a general high level view if the writer is honest and understands the system's strengths and limits. Add about another page and a half for a more detailed look without getting into specific mechanics or modifications of the base rules.

You can do that at every level. Life, hobby, game, book, chapter, subsystem, and specific rules. But I wouldn't do more than game & subsystem most of the time.

A writer who has an agenda to push ("totally new & unique mechanic!" for roll muntiple dice and choose one), hasn't played the rules as presented to new players/DMs ("we use the 'easy' dc for average checks because the 'average' dc is actually hard"), or doesn't understand what the rules do & don't do ("of course the stealth rules let you take a hide action the same turn you cast invisibility with your one action for the turn"), won't give you an effective overview.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-09, 12:11 PM
If the goal is to make a good story, and everyone at the table has even a tiny bit of trust in what others at the table consider a good story, you can throw the dice straight into trash and never pay attention to them again.
The goal is to have a make believe adventure that is worth telling stories about afterwards. That's what I've seen with successfull D&D groups. (Anecdote: An old friend of mine and I still, when we talk on the phone, laugh about the story/adventure we had over 40 years ago that involved a glacier, high winds, my hobbit thief, and a wand of wonder).

the use of dice in D&D does not originate from story games. It originates from wargames, where chaos of physical die rolls was used as simplified model for chaos present on a real battlefield. Yep.

Offloading some of the world to dice frees up GM mental processing power for other stuff. The dice act as an external inspiration for the GM and players alike, one that can add variety to simple events or suggest a grand turning point the group might not face conceived of on their own. The dice provide a moment of authentic suspense wherein the players generally know their action is possible but the outcome not predetermined. Seen that on many occasions.

Nah, if I want to play a human-centric grounded world then I will suggest playing a different game, personally. D&D 5e works extremely well with an all human party. (Which surprised the first group I did this with a few years ago). It did not surprise me since the original game also worked pretty well with all human parties, as did Empire of the Petal Throne )(a close cousin to OD&D).

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-09, 01:09 PM
It's a problem I kinda see a lot in RPG communities, and it cropped up a lot in the last thread. All systems are independent frameworks, and really the only way they can be objectively, inherently "good" or "bad" function-wise is whether or not the framework is internally consistent. It's why I always frame my statements as opinions, since I've developed a hell of a lot of those over the years from playing a lot of different systems but fully concede that those opinions were developed from my own priorities which are different, be it slightly or massively, from other people's. I personally really dislike the "gestalt health" thing that games like Dirty World use, where all "injuries" to your character (physical, mental, social, etc) are tracked on one bar, but there's obviously people out there who enjoy that mechanic, and neither of us can truly say the other is wrong (as much as we want to sometimes).

Agreed. There really only is one definition of objective "good" that works: is it fit for the purpose it declares for itself. Does it do what it says it does. There is also the subjective judgement "is what it says it does (and what it actually does, if those differ) something I want to do."

Hyper-reductionist "RPG is only about can my character do X" thinking is one of many choices. Not a better one or a worse one, just a different choice.

Edit: as to "stories fragile enough to break on a nat 1", I agree that the real answer is stop doing that. Stop designing stories that have to go a certain way; if you do, plan for failure at every step. Build a robust story where no individual event success or failed can ruin things. In my experience, the dice have a sense of dramatic appropriateness. But that's mainly because I'm not trying to create any specific story. Whatever results from their actions, that's the story. I'm there to prune the garden of possibilities so that it's coherent, no matter the outcome of the randomizing elements (ie the players). Player characters are catalysts of change. That's their role in the world; nucleation sites around which events boil. Or freeze, crystalize or erupt. My task is to have a super-saturated world, ready for disruption. And to follow the disruption where it leads.

And if a DM's nat one could ruin a story, I'd be in trouble. My dice hate me and love my players. Seriously.

Easy e
2021-12-09, 01:21 PM
Agreed. There really only is one definition of objective "good" that works: is it fit for the purpose it declares for itself. Does it do what it says it does. There is also the subjective judgement "is what it says it does (and what it actually does, if those differ) something I want to do."

Hyper-reductionist "RPG is only about can my character do X" thinking is one of many choices. Not a better one or a worse one, just a different choice.



That is why I really like a game with Designer's Notes where the designer lays out the intentions of the rules.

Some people want the Battle for North Africa where the evaporation rate of a German Jerry Can vs a British Can makes a difference; some people want Bolt Action where a rifle can't shoot across Pegasus Bridge; and some people want something else.

Hence why in the initial post, I said reducing D&D to a system where the DM never roles in such a way would make it NOT D&D anymore. It would be something else entirely.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-09, 01:54 PM
That is why I really like a game with Designer's Notes where the designer lays out the intentions of the rules.

Some people want the Battle for North Africa where the evaporation rate of a German Jerry Can vs a British Can makes a difference; some people want Bolt Action where a rifle can't shoot across Pegasus Bridge; and some people want something else.

Hence why in the initial post, I said reducing D&D to a system where the DM never roles in such a way would make it NOT D&D anymore. It would be something else entirely.

I too would like a more clear statement of purpose. I find that in 5e, you can divine the likely intended purpose from the text as well as developer statements, but that isn't crystal clear, nor is it stable. I find that the new material departs from what previously appeared (and was stated) to be the intent in many ways. Which is one reason I'm less and less fond of the new material--I liked the old intent. A lot. The new (presumed) one? Not so much.

icefractal
2021-12-09, 02:06 PM
There's a few things being discussed which aren't the same -
1) GM (specifically) doesn't roll dice. This is just a minor mechanical change; I think there's even a rule for it in 3E UA, "Players Roll all the Dice" IIRC.
2) Nobody rolls dice. While this is how freeform works, it's not limited to freeform. Chess, for example, is a game with zero dice that's highly strategic and operates entirely according to the rules.
3) Freeform, or rules which are explicitly secondary to the story.


What role do I consider randomness (typically provided by dice) to serve, personally?
Salt.

In moderation, it can make many aspects of the game better. But relying entirely on it doesn't usually produce a good result. Some of those benefits:
* It moves the story in unexpected directions and can get players (including the GM) out of ruts they subconsciously fall into.
* It's a way to represent a finer level of detail than is practical to simulate. Like, for a gymnast trying to do a difficult stunt at a competition, the observed result is that sometimes they'll succeed and sometimes they won't. This isn't really due to "randomness", but to a bunch of micro-factors that it's impractical to put in the system - how well did they sleep that night, how much adrenaline is running through their bloodstream, how much are their hands sweating, is the equipment aligned the same way as it was when they practiced, etc, etc.
* Tactically, it can make what would otherwise be a "solved" combat situation more interesting by adding an element of risk assessment and requirement of contingency plans. On the other hand, it can also remove tactical complexity (Chess with capturing not guaranteed loses a lot, IME), so for this purpose the right level really depends on the specifics of the system.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-09, 02:24 PM
In moderation, it can make many aspects of the game better. But relying entirely on it doesn't usually produce a good result.

"It" here could also refer to any rule. Rules (of which randomizers are one subset) are the servant, not the master. For some reason, that idea really irks a lot of people

Batcathat
2021-12-09, 02:24 PM
What role do I consider randomness (typically provided by dice) to serve, personally?
Salt.

In moderation, it can make many aspects of the game better. But relying entirely on it doesn't usually produce a good result. Some of those benefits:
* It moves the story in unexpected directions and can get players (including the GM) out of ruts they subconsciously fall into.
* It's a way to represent a finer level of detail than is practical to simulate. Like, for a gymnast trying to do a difficult stunt at a competition, the observed result is that sometimes they'll succeed and sometimes they won't. This isn't really due to "randomness", but to a bunch of micro-factors that it's impractical to put in the system - how well did they sleep that night, how much adrenaline is running through their bloodstream, how much are their hands sweating, is the equipment aligned the same way as it was when they practiced, etc, etc.
* Tactically, it can make what would otherwise be a "solved" combat situation more interesting by adding an element of risk assessment and requirement of contingency plans. On the other hand, it can also remove tactical complexity (Chess with capturing not guaranteed loses a lot, IME), so for this purpose the right level really depends on the specifics of the system.

This is a very good way of putting it, I think. I especially like the second point.

Pex
2021-12-09, 03:16 PM
Back? Why was it ever gone?

You're reading too literal into it perhaps. The game remains exciting, but as I said, I'm sick and tired of fighting owlbears, trolls, drow, and mindflayers. There's fun to be had in fighting new monsters.


It does rather become interesting to me that many people go out of their way to seek out mechanics that go far beyond "can my character do x", and I don't just mean crunch-favoring systems like GURPS; because at its core GURPS is still trying to answer that question, it's just very fond of detailed breakdowns of the answer.

I'm referring to things like 3.5 and Pathfinder where all the things like feat trees, optimized builds, etc are clearly no longer trying to answer that question, but instead provide an entirely new set of questions to answer. It may have started with things like "is my character good at fighting with a weapon in each hand" to which the answer is "well do you have the Two Weapon Fighting feat?" but it's clearly become far more than just that, especially as Pathfinder picks up where 3.5 left off in terms of feat trees, point pools, and other stuff that's less an abstraction of real-world concepts and more an entirely new set of rules. And though I never played 4th edition, I understand that it rather took that concept to its logical conclusion.

SNIPPAGE FOR BREVITY



Yes, for some people too many rules is a problem. 3E/Pathfinder has long been derided for their "You need a feat for that" mentality. The issue for any RPG is where to draw the line between having rules to define how something is to be done fairly and keep quiet just let the players play already. Where that line is placed causes its own arguments, such as my infamous angst about the 5E skill system that other people do share even if I'm the most vocal about it. I suppose it's possible for a game to have too many or too few rules where objectively anyone would say "No, that's not good. Have less/more rules.", but generally the controversy, so to speak, can't go away. Some people like lots of crunch. Some people don't. The debate about where the line is placed is going to happen even if you don't like that debate happening at all.

dafrca
2021-12-09, 04:25 PM
Yes, for some people too many rules is a problem. 3E/Pathfinder has long been derided for their "You need a feat for that" mentality. The issue for any RPG is where to draw the line between having rules to define how something is to be done fairly and keep quiet just let the players play already. Where that line is placed causes its own arguments, such as my infamous angst about the 5E skill system that other people do share even if I'm the most vocal about it. I suppose it's possible for a game to have too many or too few rules where objectively anyone would say "No, that's not good. Have less/more rules.", but generally the controversy, so to speak, can't go away. Some people like lots of crunch. Some people don't. The debate about where the line is placed is going to happen even if you don't like that debate happening at all.
Well written. :smallsmile:

I would also add where the lien of too much or too little is also driven by what crunch I like vs what I don't. By that I mean if I enjoy the wargame feel of combat but hate resource management then I think rule set X needs less resource management crunch but the rules around facing and bonus hitting and attacks is just right or maybe needs more crunch. LOL

Cluedrew
2021-12-09, 09:33 PM
IÂ’m sorry but your burrowing magma dragons invalidate this layout for your tectonic plates. This prevents the formation of the mountain range that protects the rainforest where the botanicals for the prophet's favorite gin developed. So dwarves wouldnÂ’t be known for drinking.Yeah, that will happen sometimes. I'm currently trying to figure out if I can make dwarfs associated with mines or mountains again in my setting. I did drop the drinking thing, or at least soften it up a bit.


Agreed. There really only is one definition of objective "good" that works: is it fit for the purpose it declares for itself. Does it do what it says it does. There is also the subjective judgement "is what it says it does (and what it actually does, if those differ) something I want to do."And even measuring the first can be tricky sometimes. I actually think 4e has much better design than a lot of people give it credit for (which is relative). It's problems were more about picking the wrong goals (and hence what trade offs it made) than in how it implemented them.


The debate about where the line is placed is going to happen even if you don't like that debate happening at all.True, and there are advantages and disadvantages and all sorts of trade-offs I love turn over and examine from every angle. But usually the important question is just "Did you have fun?"

Milodiah
2021-12-10, 08:41 AM
. I actually think 4e has much better design than a lot of people give it credit for (which is relative). It's problems were more about picking the wrong goals (and hence what trade offs it made) than in how it implemented them.

4e was a pretty good small unit tactics game that, rather unfortunately, got the D&D tag tacked to it to sell more.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-10, 09:06 AM
And if a DM's nat one could ruin a story, I'd be in trouble. My dice hate me and love my players. Seriously. To rub salt in the wound, Dil just got a dozen roses from one of your dice. :smallbiggrin: And it's not even Valentine's Day! :smallcool:

"It" here could also refer to any rule. Rules (of which randomizers are one subset) are the servant, not the master. For some reason, that idea really irks a lot of people Yeah, not going down that rat hole.

You're reading too literal into it perhaps. The game remains exciting, but as I said, I'm sick and tired of fighting owlbears, trolls, drow, and mindflayers. There's fun to be had in fighting new monsters. Big agree.
Recent example:
our group climbed to the top of a local mount a few sessions ago and ran into something none of the other players had ever seen, and that I had only run once about three years ago: galeb duhr. It took me a couple of rounds to realize what we were up against. (And I kept my trap shut). The whole group not knowing about the GD's ability to roll stones at them and some of the quirks of that encounter were very, very enjoyable. After the session I sent my brother (DM) a quick email which was a 'well done on that encounter' since it fit very well into the terrain and the (eventual) discovery by the party of a small, ancient, forgotten shrine to elemental (something?) wherein we fought a few earth elementals (which we had seen before a number of times). The session and the mini scenario really fit together well, but what I recall most was dealing with the galeb duhr and their rolling rocks. (I knocked one of the latter off of the mountain/cliff side with EB/Repelling blast. It landed a few hundred feet below, got up, and started rolling again ... which incited our bard to start singing "Poppa Was a Rolling Stone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXiQtD5gcHU)" by the temptations).

Xervous
2021-12-10, 09:07 AM
4e was a pretty good small unit tactics game that, rather unfortunately, got the D&D tag tacked to it to sell more.

And to this day I’d still play it over 5e.
4e is about the only D&D game I’d consider playing a character with the class Fighter. I’d play fighters in certain styles of 1-2e because toons are disposable.

Glorthindel
2021-12-10, 11:50 AM
4e was a pretty good small unit tactics game that, rather unfortunately, got the D&D tag tacked to it to sell more.
I have long held the stance that if they had simply called it "Dungeons and Dragons : Tactics", they'd have got away with it.

Tanarii
2021-12-10, 12:46 PM
4e is about the only D&D game I’d consider playing a character with the class Fighter. I’d play fighters in certain styles of 1-2e because toons are disposable.
Yeah, 4e Fighters specifically and "I attack" classes in general were far superior under the AEDU system. Best implementation of them I've experienced. Rolling them back to "I attack" in 4e Essentials, which was explicitly in his own words as his test bed for ideas for the next edition, was Mearl's greatest Sin.

Caveat: I never experienced ToB

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-10, 02:45 PM
Yeah, 4e Fighters specifically and "I attack" classes in general were far superior under the AEDU system.
At will, Encounter, Daily ... what's U?

JNAProductions
2021-12-10, 02:54 PM
At will, Encounter, Daily ... what's U?

Utility Powers.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-10, 03:52 PM
Utility Powers. Yes, the public utility provides power to your neighborhood. :smallbiggrin:

Can you offer an example? I didn't do 4e, wasn't D&Ding for a while.

Luccan
2021-12-10, 04:00 PM
Forgotten Realms biggest problem as a playable setting is giving characters really stupid names, not the special NPCs. In actuality the likes of Elminster or Drizzt rarely need to be accounted for, despite their power and seeming ubiquity. But some random schmuck named something like Boblen Purglespud will inevitably end up central to part of the adventure. It's not so much that silly names are bad, it's that 1. It clashes with the more normal names that also show up 2. It's rarely actually humorous, just silly 3. It ruins any serious tone you're building up. Humor is part of D&D, but it should compliment the game and not rear its head every time you mention an NPCs name.

I say this is unpopular because, at least at the moment, I genuinely think the fact I have to rename NPCs in prewritten adventures to not sound like clowns is a bigger issue than the fact somebody's pet character is somewhere in the setting. And people love to complain about that dark elf ranger

Quertus
2021-12-10, 04:51 PM
Forgotten Realms biggest problem as a playable setting is giving characters really stupid names,

I have to rename NPCs in prewritten adventures

That's what you think is FR's biggest problem? Even in the context of modules? Ho boy.

Let's look at my current kicking ____: "Halls of the High King", by Ed Greenwood.

Per my "worst module" thread,

The module is chock full of errors at all levels, and, going through the module, I filled up nearly a page of text just *describing* the errors for each page of the module. Those errors… eh, I'll spoil this "brief" overview (divided/ordered by roughly what level of "annoying" I found them) both for length, and just in case anyone actually plays 2e modules / converts them to newer systems anymore.

Sure, there's typos, like the monster that deals "6.24” damage instead of 6-24 damage.

Sure, you are given the quest by someone twice your level, with a bodyguard twice *his* level.

Sure, "if the PCs don't do it, it doesn't get done (regardless of how many Uber competent beings *could* (and, often, *should*) have done these things)" is a common theme.

I can accept all that with little more than an eye roll.

One of the big draws of FR modules is, supposedly, the quirky NPCs. That's not exactly big for me, so I'll accept that I might not appreciate the NPCs as much as some, but…

The quest-giver is a total fanboy stalker… and a strange combination of honest and conniving.

Flamsterd is… what's the name for an OP female total ***** who, incongruously, all of the NPCs totally adore? Flamsterd is a male one of those, a total may Sue, stepping on sleeping PCs, and cursing them to have their weapons *automatically break* *for months* for the audacity of a low-level party having the gaul to reject his generous offer of 0 GP to go to a foreign land to fight minions of a dark god that are steadily overwhelming said land (a wealthy militarized nation that has just commissioned the crafting of over 1,000 additional swords, the delivery of which is the initial focus of chapter 1). Yeah, it's really easy to see why all the NPCs think he's such a great guy.

And even the nameless NPCs metagame assume that everyone but the PCs are incapable of doing anything useful, prompting the (low-level) PCs with lines along the lines of, "when are y'all gonna fix all of our problems for us?" :smallyuk:

And… that's all that really stand out in my mind.

Now, this is Forgotten Realms - I expect that there's epic Archmagi running around. And that's fine. I'm not complaining about that.

I'm not even complaining about there being powerful NPCs involved in the storyline, on both sides. That's fine, too.

No, my complaints (and, yes, that's plural, as there are several) are separate from my acceptance of that setup.

One (actually rather mild) complaint is that there's a definite "haves and have nots" vibe, as some of the NPCs are just *way* better equipped than the PCs likely are or will be, even after completing the module - and that's not counting the NPCs whose equipment is "make it up".

To add to the "have nots" vibe, many NPCs have gear that cannot be stolen, and spellbooks that cannot be looted (since they hid them away, far away from the adventure). Because, apparently, it's important that NPCs always remain better than the PCs can ever be.

But most telling of all are the base NPC stat blocks. If it's a major NPC, expect something close to straight 18's (I think several NPCs are in "lowest stat is a 14" territory (actually, make that 6 of the NPCs just in chapter 1 with "no stat lower than a 14" - and several of the "lesser" chapter 1 NPCs are set up with their lowest stat as a 13)).

And it's not just the named NPCs - the PCs would be better off handing their gear to a random nameless NPC, because even those guys have better listed stats (also "no stat lower than a 13", BTW - they just cap out at 16 instead of 18) than the PCs are likely sporting. Baring some extreme luck / munchkinry, the PCs are literally the worst people in the world!

Apropos to the comment that part of the value of modules is having statted NPCs, a lot of the NPCs in this module have stat blocks of, "eh, make something up".

As if that weren't bad enough, a lot of these unstatted NPCs have "Lady of Pain" style text along the lines of, "assume that their defenses defeat anything that the PCs attempt to do".

And as if *that* weren't bad enough, check this out: one of the antagonists in chapter 1 (who actually got one of the more complete write-ups) explicitly has no magic items, no spellbook, no applicable memorized spells, and the text, "His defenses will prevent PCs from reading his mind or detecting his alignment". Um… how, exactly? :smallconfused:

-----

EDIT: now, some of you will doubtless be irritated that I include this, because it's a valid playstyle, but it irritates me, so I'm including it. What is this "it"? That there is (IMO) an overabundance of random encounters, but the GM is encouraged to simply ignore them if they "hamper the pace or enjoyment of play". The Plot is railroaded (even if ignoring it would make for a better story); the physics are not. :smallannoyed:


Just to name a few (and to pick on the Wizards), you've got Wizards…

Casting spells beyond their capabilities.

Casting spells that aren't in their "spells memorized" (which is full, I checked - so it's not just "they cast that spell, and their memorized spells are what they have left").

Casting Time Stop… just to Teleport away… instead of just teleporting.

Casting Invisibility… just to Teleport away… instead of just teleporting.

Casting spells which don't do what the module has them do.

When I say that the rails are "beyond lunacy", I want you to understand exactly what I mean. So let's start with spellbooks - and, more importantly, the background to understand just *why* this is beyond lunacy.

In 3e, PCs get loot, which they convert to GP value, and use to purchase magical items to increase their power.

Spellbooks are a *big deal* for Wizards, being an expensive magical item that is highly vulnerable, and without which they are simply a glorified Commoner.

Now let's look at 2e.

In 2e, Wizards are still glorified Commoners without their spellbooks (ignoring that the "Commoner" class didn't exist in 2e). And spellbooks are still vulnerable (arguably even moreso than in 3e). But everything else is different.

There is no assumption of magic item shops - items can be purchased rarely to never. So what do characters do with the actual "gold and gems" portion of their loot? Drink, buy castles, hire retainers, bribe magistrates - mundane stuff.

Now, here's the big one: spellbooks are just mundane books. They're just recipe cookbooks for "how to make gunpowder" (or the spell equivalent).

Replacing a spellbook (or creating a backup copy) is as trivial as buying some blank paper, getting out (perfectly mundane) quill and ink, and writing.

Yet, despite this, and despite how ridiculously much trouble it should cause the NPCs (one of whom crafts reams of scrolls for their buff routines instead of carrying a spell book… for reasons…) the NPC Wizards seem allergic to their spellbooks, hiding them as far away from themselves as possible, not even carrying small partial copies ("travel spellbooks") with them.

I mean, we all know that (enemy) NPCs only live for one encounter, and so all they need is a spell loadout, as they will never actually *use" their spellbook on camera, but geez! The "cardboard cutout" nature of the backdrop is really showing here.

And why? Why go through all the effort to ensure that the PCs never get ahold of an NPC spellbook? What's the payoff? Best guess? To make Flamsterd's offer of "one spell, each" seem very generous.

OK, real quick, here's just a few examples, starting with one that I have mentioned before:

"His defenses will prevent PCs from reading his mind or detecting his alignment". Even ignoring how, why? There is absolutely no reason for this. Yes, ganking him the moment you meet him will mean that you don't have a rather dumb encounter later (but certainly not the dumbest in the module), but... so what? Absolutely nothing in the module is dependent upon that encounter, nothing (other than "this is dumb") is learned from that encounter (that couldn't be learned - and, IMO, learned "better" - by reading his mind), there is afaict no point to that encounter, and the module would actually be *better* if the PCs realistically detected and ganked this guy, or, alternately, realistically *didn't* detect and/or chose not to gank him.

"Start this encounter when there is at least one PC on deck [at night]”. And, if that never happens (because, say, the PCs choose to actually sleep at night)?

"When… traveling anywhere overland… they will hurl spears from thickets and overhanging tree branches". So, when the party decides to follow the coastline, and there's nothing but sand…

"Regardless of which direction the party takes [they come to a grove]" - ignoring the questionable grammar, do note that this includes *backtracking*. "Huh, this grove wasn't here before…” :smallconfused:

(If I were going beyond chapter 1, I would talk about how there are no boats… until the plot demands that there's a boat…) :smallannoyed:

And I was going to say, "and that's all just in the 1st chapter", but I see that I've strayed into chapter 2. Oops.

As a final irritant, the author spends an undue amount of time and ink gushing over certain NPCs and detailing the customs of the clergy of Bane (like, exactly what each level of Cleric is allowed to wear to what function), while spending almost no time actually describing the scenes, or giving details to handle anything off the rails beyond, "if the PCs attempt to kill this NPC".

EDIT: adding in Flamsterd stuff, just to have it all in one place next time I search for it. This "gentle" "polite" and "kindly" man will "step on anyone's who's sleeping", kill "those who thwart his will" "ask the corpse questions" and "apologize the the remains is he's made a mistake".

What qualifies as "thwarting his will"? Unknown. But this "gentle" "polite" and "kindly" man will curse any of the (low-level) PCs who have the gall to reject his generous offer of 0 GP¹ to go to a foreign land to fight minions of a dark god that are steadily overwhelming said land (a wealthy militarized nation that has just commissioned the crafting of over 1,000 additional swords, the delivery of which is the initial focus of chapter 1 of the module), cursing them to have their weapons *automatically break* *for months*.

He casts invisibility, "to protect the presence of another person"… before Teleporting them *both* away.

(EDIT: oh, and let's not forget that Flamsterd thinks that it's a good idea to goad people into attacking him, so that he can learn their "bad tactics", when his own tactics are (as listed above, and) authorial fiat: assume that he is immune to anything anyone tries.)

So… do you *really* still think that the NPC names are the worst part of Forgotten Realms modules? :smallconfused:

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-10, 05:34 PM
Forgotten Realms biggest problem as a playable setting is giving characters really stupid names, not the special NPCs. In actuality the likes of Elminster or Drizzt rarely need to be accounted for, despite their power and seeming ubiquity.
But some random schmuck named something like Boblen Purglespud will inevitably end up central to part of the adventure. It's not so much that silly names are bad, it's that 1. It clashes with the more normal names that also show up 2. It's rarely actually humorous, just silly 3. It ruins any serious tone you're building up. Humor is part of D&D, but it should compliment the game and not rear its head every time you mention an NPCs name. Yeah, and the current WoTC team ain't helping.

And people love to complain about that dark elf ranger There's a think about taking a trope inversion too far. Well, they did it. It became a parody of itself. (Props to Rob Salvatore, though, for getting some D&D novels onto the New York Times best seller list. That was quite unusual when it happened, not sure if he was the first).

Pex
2021-12-10, 05:51 PM
Forgotten Realms biggest problem as a playable setting is giving characters really stupid names, not the special NPCs. In actuality the likes of Elminster or Drizzt rarely need to be accounted for, despite their power and seeming ubiquity. But some random schmuck named something like Boblen Purglespud will inevitably end up central to part of the adventure. It's not so much that silly names are bad, it's that 1. It clashes with the more normal names that also show up 2. It's rarely actually humorous, just silly 3. It ruins any serious tone you're building up. Humor is part of D&D, but it should compliment the game and not rear its head every time you mention an NPCs name.

I say this is unpopular because, at least at the moment, I genuinely think the fact I have to rename NPCs in prewritten adventures to not sound like clowns is a bigger issue than the fact somebody's pet character is somewhere in the setting. And people love to complain about that dark elf ranger

Heh

In my homebrew world beholders have names - Joe, Bob, Fred, Tom, etc.




SNIPPAGE FOR BREVITY

And I was going to say, "and that's all just in the 1st chapter", but I see that I've strayed into chapter 2. Oops.

As a final irritant, the author spends an undue amount of time and ink gushing over certain NPCs and detailing the customs of the clergy of Bane (like, exactly what each level of Cleric is allowed to wear to what function), while spending almost no time actually describing the scenes, or giving details to handle anything off the rails beyond, "if the PCs attempt to kill this NPC".

So… do you *really* still think that the NPC names are the worst part of Forgotten Realms modules? :smallconfused:

hahaha

I would say it's more a problem of 2E modules in general. 2E was notorious for monsters and NPCs breaking the rules and outright cheating in having stuff no PC could ever have or do. That's what I liked about 3E. The bad guys followed the same rules as PCs, but at the cost of complexity for the DM to create his own NPCs. 5E went back to monsters and NPCs don't follow the same rules as PCs. I was worried it meant back to the horror of 2E, but that's not what happened. They took care in creating monsters and NPCs their strengths and weakness are comparable to PCs. I'm aware people do complain about 5E CR. I can say for me I'm not bothered. There are dangerous monsters, as there should be, but they aren't outrageous compared to PCs of equivalent power. I accept the unique iconic uberBBEG being a bit more.

Cluedrew
2021-12-10, 10:24 PM
4e was a pretty good small unit tactics game that, rather unfortunately, got the D&D tag tacked to it to sell more.
I have long held the stance that if they had simply called it "Dungeons and Dragons : Tactics", they'd have got away with it.Here is the thing though, I think that they thought it was the next natural step for D&D. After all the theoretical optimization talk of 3.5 I see where they were coming from. History has showed they were wrong, but I can give them that small piece of credit.

Pex
2021-12-10, 10:58 PM
Here is the thing though, I think that they thought it was the next natural step for D&D. After all the theoretical optimization talk of 3.5 I see where they were coming from. History has showed they were wrong, but I can give them that small piece of credit.

I don't see it as lean to optimization but an overreaction of people yelling about how powerful and unbalancing magic was in 3E. They didn't get rid of magic completely, but to me they did. People said they made martials into spellcasters giving them powers, but I see it as the reverse. They made spellcasters into martials giving them attacks. 4E magic didn't feel magical to me. Also, they were so intent on everything being balanced they took it too literal. Instead of balance of comparable power they went balance of everyone doing the same thing. Different labels, colors, and flavor texts, but basically the same thing. The "sameyness".

icefractal
2021-12-11, 12:54 AM
Thing is, they had a good solution to non-combat magic - rituals. But they were way too cautious with them.

In concept, rituals are great. The kind of resource management that works well for combat abilities doesn't work well for a lot of the non-combat ones. Action economy isn't a thing, even uses/day might not matter. So, separate out those to a different system where you can give them relevant costs. And by making it a separate system, people with non-caster classes can access it too, which removes the "some PCs get plot-level abilities, others don't" problem.

In practice, the costs were too high, there weren't enough rituals, and most of them were too anemic. But if they'd done it better and not been afraid of having powerful ones, it would be a superior system to how they're handled in other editions.

Some spells effectively do function like that - the cost of Simulacrum is not the 7th level slot, it's the fact that it's expensive and takes 12 hours. The slot's only real meaning is that you need to be 13th+ level to do it, in most cases, which could be done equally by a required number of ranks in Spellcraft (or whatever skill).

Vahnavoi
2021-12-11, 01:11 AM
@Quertus: the rant about hidden spellbooks in AD&D is misplaced. Under AD&D paradigm, there are few to no good reasons for a magic-user to carry a spellbook on their person - even a travel spellbook. The book is used to prepare spells, not to cast them, and the time cost of preparing spells is big enough that it's rarely practical to do on the field, so even a travel spellbook is best left hidden in a safehouse or destroyed after use - hidden or destoyed, because spells are secret information. Magic-users don't want potential enemies to have their hands on their research, information isn't free, it's dangerous and best kept in a locked box. That is also the real reason why a reward of 1 new spell per person is generous.

dafrca
2021-12-11, 02:05 AM
@Quertus: the rant about hidden spellbooks in AD&D is misplaced. Under AD&D paradigm, there are few to no good reasons for a magic-user to carry a spellbook on their person - even a travel spellbook. The book is used to prepare spells, not to cast them, and the time cost of preparing spells is big enough that it's rarely practical to do on the field, so even a travel spellbook is best left hidden in a safehouse or destroyed after use - hidden or destoyed, because spells are secret information. Magic-users don't want potential enemies to have their hands on their research, information isn't free, it's dangerous and best kept in a locked box. That is also the real reason why a reward of 1 new spell per person is generous.

Interesting opinion. Does not match my experience with AD&D at all. Our parties for sure didn't keep popping back to some safehouse so the Wizard could prepare their spells for the day every day then pop back to the place in the adventure where we left off before making camp for the night. Now most of my Wizards I played for sure used a much smaller and limited spellbook. I even, as a GM, used an article from a Dragon magazine that gave an idea of cost and page counts for both full books and travel books.

But no, we did not always leave our spell books back at a farm house and we sure as heck didn't destroy our own books. So while your idea here is interesting, I do not think it is a 100% understood thing for the old AD&D.

Satinavian
2021-12-11, 02:30 AM
Interesting opinion. Does not match my experience with AD&D at all. Our parties for sure didn't keep popping back to some safehouse so the Wizard could prepare their spells for the day every day then pop back to the place in the adventure where we left off before making camp for the night.Did your groups actually have a safehouse/secure base/home in reach ?

Would your wizards have carried their spellbook during downtime or left it at home/in their wizards tower ?

Vahnavoi
2021-12-11, 02:43 AM
Did you actually use all the relevant rules, namely:

1) spells take 10 minutes per a spell's spell level to prepare. F.ex. four 1st level spells take 40 minutes.

2) item saving throws (etc.); spellbooks made of ordinary material were very vulnerable.

3) Transcribing spells from book to book or from memory to book takes time and money; spells you don't have prepared, stored in a scroll or in another book cannot be transcribed, so if a book with spells you don't have prepared gets destroyed, those spells are potentially lost forever.

Because these add up to a game where having your spellbook on your person is a great way to lose valuable magical research. Add to this:

4) the primary way to gain new spells for adventuring magic-users, is to loot or steal them from other magic-users.

5) enemy magic-users KNOW THIS.

Players not keeping their spell knowledge safe and hidden is on them, a game master playing non-adventuring magic-users like they're foolish adventurers is on the game master. AD&D has several spells for the explicit purpose of hiding and storing items, such as secret chest.

dafrca
2021-12-11, 02:48 AM
Did your groups actually have a safehouse/secure base/home in reach ?

Would your wizards have carried their spellbook during downtime or left it at home/in their wizards tower ?
Depending on the party/campaign of course, but for the most part, no they didn't always stay only a day away from a safehouse/secure base/home. In some campaigns we travelled long journeys and thus did not have the luxury of leaving stuff at home so to speak. But I do agree that in many cases the habit was to secure the "complete spellbook" and use a travel book on the road.

Telok
2021-12-11, 02:51 AM
Thing is, they had a good solution to non-combat magic - rituals. But they were way too cautious with them.

In concept, rituals are great. The kind of resource management that works well for combat abilities doesn't work well for a lot of the non-combat ones.

We realized how screwed the 4e rituals were when we saw the one for water breathing. Costs money, single target, 10 minute cast, one hour duration, party of 6...

We tried, really. I did a bard that tried to lean into the rituals. Unfortunately only one (other than the gear treadmill & rez ones) ever got used, some torch thing where only the person holding the torch could see its light, basically darkvision with a focus for the human rogue. The character ended up with half the rituals he bought never scribed & useable because our game didn't get lots of downtime.

For the DtD40k rewrite I did I came up with a ritual system, since the base magic system was mainly combat focused. It ended up with 4 checks, taking about 45 hours of work each time, used all the mental stats in the system, and pretty much gauranteed failure the first time. But you could go through the process again reducing the difficulty of some of the checks. In theory a weak caster or a group of weak casters with enough time & effort could do some pretty impressive stuff, or a really powerful caster could whip out a custom ritual in half a week. The worked example was a lich taking six to nine 40 hour weeks to build & confirm a permanent scry+magic missile ward on a door (probably faster with the 'no sleep' thing.

dafrca
2021-12-11, 02:55 AM
Did you actually use all the relevant rules, namely:

1) spells take 10 minutes per a spell's spell level to prepare. F.ex. four 1st level spells take 40 minutes.
Yes - but when your safe house is three weeks away you do not go back home to prepare your spells.


2) item saving throws (etc.); spellbooks made of ordinary material were very vulnerable.

3) Transcribing spells from book to book or from memory to book takes time and money; spells you don't have prepared, stored in a scroll or in another book cannot be transcribed, so if a book with spells you don't have prepared gets destroyed, those spells are potentially lost forever.

Because these add up to a game where having your spellbook on your person is a great way to lose valuable magical research. Add to this:
Thus why you have travel books that contain a subset of spells that makes sense for the road.


4) the primary way to gain new spells for adventuring magic-users, is to loot or steal them from other magic-users.

5) enemy magic-users KNOW THIS.

Players not keeping their spell knowledge safe and hidden is on them, a game master playing non-adventuring magic-users like they're foolish adventurers is on the game master. AD&D has several spells for the explicit purpose of hiding and storing items, such as secret chest.

I am not saying you are wrong about the cost/time/risk involved. I am saying I never destroyed one of my own books as you suggested and I have never played a Wizard who used their spells then ran back home to prepare a new set. If you did, cool and most interesting. :smallsmile:

Pex
2021-12-11, 03:32 AM
The true reason 2E NPC wizards didn't have their spellbooks with them was so that the DM can have the NPCs cast all the powerful spells they want and not worry about the PC wizard getting them. Only NPCs were allowed to be uberpowerful.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-11, 04:05 AM
Yes - but when your safe house is three weeks away you do not go back home to prepare your spells.

See, this is a relevant strategic difference between how you've played your game and I' ve played mine. Because in my games:

- even if you're on the road, having your travel book in a sealed box in a saddlebag or inside a wagon after you've prepared your spells (and you often don't even prepare new spells each day) is preferable to having it on your person.

- if you're exploring a ruin or dungeon, leaving said sealed box under a random rock near a base camp is preferable to having it on your person.

- at higher levels, use secret chest or other pocket dimension spell. Or have some kind of a mobile fortress, such as a guarded warship, to keep your book in.

- at highest levels, you always have word of recall, teleport, etc. at hand for the specific purpose of returning to a safe location at will.

Being three weeks away from some kind of a safehouse is not a thing you want to happen. Are you in hot pursuit or being pursued by an enemy? Then it's excusable. But if you are not under pressing threat, establishing a safe location to retreat, rest and store vulnerable equipment in is step one of adventuring. Several spells exist explicitly for these purposes.

MoiMagnus
2021-12-11, 08:57 AM
4) the primary way to gain new spells for adventuring magic-users, is to loot or steal them from other magic-users.


I know it's partly due to the rules themselves, but I find it kind of sad (as in "not a world I would like to live in") that the main way to obtain information is adversarial, and that opportunities to trade and exchange spell knowledge with friendly NPCs don't overshadow the opportunities to do so by looting their dead body.

A nicer universe would lead to the optimal playstyle being "most Wizard travel with two copies of their spellbook, so that they always have one available for trading or selling to another fellow Wizards".

Vahnavoi
2021-12-11, 10:12 AM
I know it's partly due to the rules themselves, but I find it kind of sad (as in "not a world I would like to live in") that the main way to obtain information is adversarial, and that opportunities to trade and exchange spell knowledge with friendly NPCs don't overshadow the opportunities to do so by looting their dead body.

A nicer universe would lead to the optimal playstyle being "most Wizard travel with two copies of their spellbook, so that they always have one available for trading or selling to another fellow Wizards".

There's nothing sad about it, said "nicer universe" was simply not desired from a game design viewpoint. Literary inspirations behind D&D magic involve Vance, Lovecraft, Howard, the bible, etc. - works where information is both inherently and consequentally dangerous and where magic-users are secretive both towards non-magicians and ESPECIALLY other magic-users. Forgotten Realms doesn't even have the most severe examples of this, out of all D&D settings.

Said "nicer universe" would more naturally be domain of proselytizing Lawful clerics and organized religion.

Tanarii
2021-12-11, 11:42 AM
I am not saying you are wrong about the cost/time/risk involved. I am saying I never destroyed one of my own books as you suggested and I have never played a Wizard who used their spells then ran back home to prepare a new set. If you did, cool and most interesting. :smallsmile:
I don't think I ever saw an AD&D Wizard honestly leveled up that didn't lose at least one of their spellbooks at some point. Keeping backups and/or traveling spellbooks you were almost certain to lose occasionally was a significant drain. Certainly low level ones did NOT risk taking their primary (and usually only) copy into the dungeon with them unless they were totally crazy, nor mid to high level ones their full primary set on extended journeys.


I know it's partly due to the rules themselves, but I find it kind of sad (as in "not a world I would like to live in") that the main way to obtain information is adversarial, and that opportunities to trade and exchange spell knowledge with friendly NPCs don't overshadow the opportunities to do so by looting their dead body.

A nicer universe would lead to the optimal playstyle being "most Wizard travel with two copies of their spellbook, so that they always have one available for trading or selling to another fellow Wizards".I do wonder if their default assumption makes sense in the full setting of Blackmoor or Greyhawk, not being that familiar with them. Certainly in Mystara it doesn't make much sense. Wizards aren't that much in competition once you start getting into the gazetteers, except in Glantri and Alphatia. Of course that's where most of the worlds Wizards live, and in both locations dueling is common. They do trade, but the idea that you're empowing possible opponents keeps prices high.

Personally if I lived in a world where my magic spells were hard come, as in the primary way they entered circulation was risking life and limb in adventuring, and the biggest threat to me and my fighter buddies (and their armies) were enemy Magic users that could use my spells against us, I'd certainly up the price significantly for someone wanting to buy them.

LibraryOgre
2021-12-11, 12:07 PM
The entire method of getting spells from other NPCs, without killing them, was bonkers to me.

"I will trade spells with you, but only if you give me WAY more value than I am going to possibly give you."

Tanarii
2021-12-11, 12:14 PM
The entire method of getting spells from other NPCs, without killing them, was bonkers to me.

"I will trade spells with you, but only if you give me WAY more value than I am going to possibly give you."
I mean, that's how trading anything works. How much do you want their thing must be significantly more than the value of what you're giving up.

And when what you're giving up is a major and deadly advantage ...

NichG
2021-12-11, 02:55 PM
I mean, that's how trading anything works. How much do you want their thing must be significantly more than the value of what you're giving up.

And when what you're giving up is a major and deadly advantage ...

Secrets don't keep, so there's a huge opportunity cost in not selling knowledge while it's still rare enough to be worth buying.

Though psychologically that's a hard lesson for people to learn, because if it's a personal secret or invention or discovery then believing that someone else could duplicate your discovery means losing out on the opportunity to believe there's something unique about yourself which other people lack which made it possible for you to be the one to discover it.

So it's a question of ego versus avarice...

Or I suppose you can use excessive posturing about secrecy and sensitivity of knowledge to drive up the price and get both...

LibraryOgre
2021-12-11, 03:14 PM
I mean, that's how trading anything works. How much do you want their thing must be significantly more than the value of what you're giving up.

And when what you're giving up is a major and deadly advantage ...

Trading also works best when it's reasonably equitable... "You give me thing, I give you thing of reasonably equal value to you." Not the suggested "double value plus a reasonable bonus"... unless the thing is critical, you're usually not willing to pay that price.

Tanarii
2021-12-11, 04:08 PM
Secrets don't keep, so there's a huge opportunity cost in not selling knowledge while it's still rare enough to be worth buying..In this Case, keeping it secret is exactly what gives it value. That's the value you're giving up, and the reward needs to be worth the perceived value.


Trading also works best when it's reasonably equitable... "You give me thing, I give you thing of reasonably equal value to you." Not the suggested "double value plus a reasonable bonus"... unless the thing is critical, you're usually not willing to pay that price.
Not in this case. The 'value' given is how much NPCs are willing to pay a silly adventurer who live frankly suicidal lives, as well as being a fictional being played by a real player thereby lessening the 'danger' perception, and so who is willing to part with it. The reason it takes twice as much to buy is the NPCs aren't that silly and are quite real (in their own minds). They know how dangerous it is to part with such information.

Basically, it's not worth one "equal value" spell to make it worth it to them to part with their secrets. Whereas a player might easily think "eh, it's not like I lose the spell, this costs me nothing". As an example, see 5e Adventurers league players freely giving away spells from their spellbooks to other Wizards in the party.

icefractal
2021-12-11, 04:55 PM
It makes sense if the Wizard offering the bad deal doesn't really want to trade, like listing an overly high price for something you don't really want to sell, but it is a rip-off and they shouldn't expect many takers unless they have a reputation for knowing amazing spells.

IDK how much paranoia about rivals knowing what you can do is justified though.
1) You can always keep a second book for the stuff you want to stay secret.
2) How likely is it that a given Wizard is even going to end up being your rival?
3) For a lot of spells, knowing you theoretically could have them prepared doesn't change an antagonist's strategy much.
4) Unless you're employing anti-divination measures, a motivated adversary can already find out as much or more about your tactics.

LibraryOgre
2021-12-11, 05:27 PM
Not in this case. The 'value' given is how much NPCs are willing to pay a silly adventurer who live frankly suicidal lives, as well as being a fictional being played by a real player thereby lessening the 'danger' perception, and so who is willing to part with it. The reason it takes twice as much to buy is the NPCs aren't that silly and are quite real (in their own minds). They know how dangerous it is to part with such information.

One could equally say, however, it's dangerous not to have the information the PC is providing. This is where the equal value thing comes in... both of them are sharing secrets that the other can use and does not have. Assuming equal level, the secrets are of roughly equal value. "I can charge you what I want" only works when you've got someone over a barrel... the adventurer may want suggestion, but if it's not necessary, why should they pay twice as much for something they don't need? Why trade away scrolls, potions, or a ring of invisibility (as if those were equivalent) for that?

Basically, those rules assume the player character is silly... that they'll agree to a hugely unequal trade instead of, say, hiring someone to steal the spellbook for a magic item worth a high-level assassination (a 9th level assassin being sent against a 13th-15th level character is about the same as a ring of invisibility). Sure, it might not be the thing a lawful good character will do, but it's not off the table for a lot of others.


Basically, it's not worth one "equal value" spell to make it worth it to them to part with their secrets. Whereas a player might easily think "eh, it's not like I lose the spell, this costs me nothing". As an example, see 5e Adventurers league players freely giving away spells from their spellbooks to other Wizards in the party.

"Superior players will certainly co-operate; thus, spells will in all probability be exchanged between PC magic-users to some extent." - 1e DMG, p. 39

NichG
2021-12-11, 05:54 PM
In this Case, keeping it secret is exactly what gives it value. That's the value you're giving up, and the reward needs to be worth the perceived value.

That's the ego trap, the belief that if you aren't the one who sells this secret, no one else will find an independent way to make the knowledge obsolete (by reinventing the same thing, by rediscovering the same thing, by inventing or discovering something that makes it obsolete, ...) It's a mindset I've encountered IRL at the interface between industry and research. It's a big change of perspective to realize that research doesn't give you this thing which will be a permanent advantage over everyone else (and therefore must be kept secret or patented or whatever) but rather it might give you half a year of lead time to actually position yourself to have the infrastructure in place where that research is going to be useful. People want 'moats' which make it hard for competitors to get into the same market, and 'our team developed an idea that the other teams haven't come up with yet' is a very weak moat.

Pex
2021-12-11, 06:55 PM
The entire method of getting spells from other NPCs, without killing them, was bonkers to me.

"I will trade spells with you, but only if you give me WAY more value than I am going to possibly give you."

That was the common theme of 2E. Everything was expensive as a means to drain a PCs treasure hoard, so he needs to adventure to get more treasure. The Monty Hall campaign was a common derision at that time. There is a point to it, but the fear of having one often led to overcompensation of stinginess, something a few 5E DMs copy. More than that it was part of the general motive of 2E play. The 2E DMG encouraged an adversarial relationship between the DM and players. It wasn't outright hostility because there needed to be a game, but players were on the metaphorical leash.

3E's reaction to that was other people's problem. They felt the leash was lost, and players ruled everything. "Entitlement" was their buzzword. The DM still had his rightful power, but they didn't see it. To them players had too much ability to choose. Class abilities, multiclassing, prestige classes, feats, magic items, it was all player gets what he wants and the DM was the bad guy for not allowing something.

4E was grounding the both of them. No supper. No tv.

5E didn't bring back the leash. Instead, it locked the DM and player in a room and told them they're not leaving until they get along. After arguing back and forth compromise was reached. A window was opened - the early splat books. The door was unlocked - Xanathar. They can have supervised free play - modules and gameworld source books with Eberron as a Christmas present. Finally they're set free - Tasha. Old tensions simmer. It's to be determined if 5.5E brings peace or open warfare again.

LibraryOgre
2021-12-11, 07:20 PM
That was the common theme of 2E. Everything was expensive as a means to drain a PCs treasure hoard, so he needs to adventure to get more treasure. The Monty Hall campaign was a common derision at that time. There is a point to it, but the fear of having one often led to overcompensation of stinginess, something a few 5E DMs copy. More than that it was part of the general motive of 2E play. The 2E DMG encouraged an adversarial relationship between the DM and players. It wasn't outright hostility because there needed to be a game, but players were on the metaphorical leash.

TBH, that's WAY more a 1e thing. The 2e DMG was mostly "Yeah, that's how you get spells; convince them to help you." The 1e DMG was "You will only get spells by murdering people, unless you are bad with money."

Tanarii
2021-12-11, 09:12 PM
That's the ego trap, the belief that if you aren't the one who sells this secret, no one else will find an independent way to make the knowledge obsolete (by reinventing the same thing, by rediscovering the same thing, by inventing or discovering something that makes it obsolete, ...) Given the default state is "we don't want them to have this thing at all" in this case, I fail to see where it's an ego trap. In this case, it's very likely they won't get the spell at all if you don't sell it.

But even if you expect the spell eventually, that still means there's a significant cost for you giving a copy of the spell earlier than that.


TBH, that's WAY more a 1e thing. The 2e DMG was mostly "Yeah, that's how you get spells; convince them to help you." The 1e DMG was "You will only get spells by murdering people, unless you are bad with money."
AD&D version was gonzo. You had to roll to see if you could learn each spell of a given level from the magic user spell list in an order of your choice, until you'd checked all of them or hit your max, and if you checked all and were below you min for a level start again. And then you had to go out and find those spells. If you found spells not on the ones you were able to learn, too bad so sad. If you never found one you could learn too bad so sad. If you rolled badly on all your top picks of that spell level too bad so sad. It was like each magic user had a custom potential class spell list, with sized based on intelligence and contents based on luck.

Most people I played with just ignored all that process, discard the minimum number, and roll to learn as they found each copy of a spell, up to their max. And I gather that was common.

Quertus
2021-12-11, 09:43 PM
Wow, serious and intelligent discourse about the disposition of spellbooks, and Wizards thereunto, for a system out of print for over two decades? I do so love the Playground!

Wow, where to start? I suppose "attitude" (and "role-playing") would make sense…

@Vahnavoi, I've not seen worlds as… naively paranoid as you describe. IME, 2e Wizards would never have a (travel) spellbook in a saddlebag or inside the wagon. They would have it ("in a sealed box") either…
on their person (protected by their abjurations), or
in their saddlebag, on the wagon, on every PC and NPC hireling and henchman they can convince to spare the encumbrance, *and* half a dozen extra places as well.

Or both. Because a Wizard without spells was useless, and you don't want a Fireball making your artillery useless.

But this was based on the general attitude that the PCs never knew where the adventure might take them - or for how long. And also certainly based on the understanding of how items could be lost to saving throws.

In the original Greyhawk model of "adventure for a day, rest and get drunk"? Sure, it'd make perfect sense to leave your spellbook behind.

But for the adventurers I played and saw? For the Halls of the High King NPC pirate, or the NPC on a months-long mission? No, it's pretty silly.

Did "stealing magic research" happen? Well, yes. Were the PCs paranoid about it? Um… let's see…
if someone kills me, I'm dead, what do i care what secrets they learn from my corpse (note that getting my spellbook off my corpse vs Speak with Dead and getting it from my hiding place are roughly equally easy, and I'm just as dead either way)
if it's easy to steal from my many copies? either
I never hear from them again, means they didn't kill me, i win, or
they come back, and either
i kill them easily (free XP) or
they have good loot and Wizard HP, even better!
Regardless, NPC Wizards that are *improved* by learning *my* tricks are still not any worse than the monsters (like Dragons and beholders) that I'm fighting anyway.


And then there's the advantages of PCs trading spells. I'll not deny, it wasn't exactly common. But it was done.

So, let's look at a few examples. Of course, I'll include Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named. He was the quintessential Wizard, always trying to gain more spells. Usually, he let other PCs (or NPCs) initiate trade, and he usually traded them the same spell: his custom Quertus' Spell Star (it's not any more dangerous to him than any other offensive spell, and it gets his name out there, and those who've seen him cast it often show interest). He has also traded things that he considers "staple" spells, like Fireball or Amanuensis. When the party killed a hostile NPC Wizard, Quertus hunted for the spell book. The GM, who knew how many spells Quertus had, more than any PC he had seen before, laughed at the idea, saying what could this 5th level NPC have that would interest Quertus? So he rolled 5 random spells each for levels 1-3 (except not random for spells the Wizard had cast, like Fireball). End result? Quertus learned 11 new spells. "And *that's* why Quertus knows so many spells!" And, despite all that, Quertus has resorted to "stealing" spells from other Wizards to further expand his knowledge of rare / unique magics. And then he started *really* researching his own - not just a few spells with his name, but whole sensory suites (more custom detection and information gathering spells than there are spells in core). Contrary to conventional wisdom, for a long time, Quertus actually kept his original spellbook with him, leaving (un)travel spellbook copies behind when he got the chance.

Illyrian kept his spells in a nigh-indestructible book chained to his waist. As a Bladesinger, he let a few Elves copy spells from him, but otherwise hoarded his limited knowledge.

And… other than a few apprentices that have "stolen" their masters' spellbooks, I don't think I've seen or played much of anything else in 2e worth talking about in this regard (darn senility?).


The true reason 2E NPC wizards didn't have their spellbooks with them was so that the DM can have the NPCs cast all the powerful spells they want and not worry about the PC wizard getting them. Only NPCs were allowed to be uberpowerful.

That, of course, was the real reason at many tables, surely, and Ed Greenwood appears to fall into that paradigm in spades.


Secrets don't keep, so there's a huge opportunity cost in not selling knowledge while it's still rare enough to be worth buying.

Though psychologically that's a hard lesson for people to learn, because if it's a personal secret or invention or discovery then believing that someone else could duplicate your discovery means losing out on the opportunity to believe there's something unique about yourself which other people lack which made it possible for you to be the one to discover it.

So it's a question of ego versus avarice...

Or I suppose you can use excessive posturing about secrecy and sensitivity of knowledge to drive up the price and get both...

Quertus just realized that, obviously, Bigby, Mordenkainen, Rary, Evard, and company didn't keep their spells to themselves - that getting their spells out there, in circulation, was important for spreading their fame. Thus, he tended towards trading "Quertus' Spell Star".

Solspai
2021-12-12, 04:19 PM
New user who found this thread and lurked for a bit, hello :)

Not sure if this is unpopular but: failing in D&D 5E is boring and unrewarding. There's no mechanical character growth that comes from it so you just do less.

5E combat feels like somebody played a JRPG and said "I like this a lot but I really wish it were slower and we had to do this by hand"

Quertus
2021-12-12, 06:56 PM
Did you actually use all the relevant rules, namely:

1) spells take 10 minutes per a spell's spell level to prepare. F.ex. four 1st level spells take 40 minutes.

Yup. So, if you don't want to waste *days* when you get back to base, you want to keep your spells topped off (or as close as you can get) while you're on the road.


2) item saving throws (etc.); spellbooks made of ordinary material were very vulnerable.

Yup. That's why you want your spellbook protected by your abjurations, and in as many places as possible.


3) Transcribing spells from book to book or from memory to book takes time and money; spells you don't have prepared, stored in a scroll or in another book cannot be transcribed, so if a book with spells you don't have prepared gets destroyed, those spells are potentially lost forever.

Yup. That's why you want as many backups as possible.


Because these add up to a game where having your spellbook on your person is a great way to lose valuable magical research. Add to this:

Having your *only copy* on your person might be questionable… but, that said, just the phrase "only copy" is pretty iffy, IMO. (One of my friends made that mistake IRL with their computer artwork, and the world is lessened by its loss.)


4) the primary way to gain new spells for adventuring magic-users, is to loot or steal them from other magic-users.


5) enemy magic-users KNOW THIS.

Good. The d4 HP imbeciles are welcome to "come and get it"; I'll use Speak with Dead to pry the location of their "hidden" spellbooks from their cold, dead minds. And enemy Wizards drop the best loot!

No, seriously. If (for example) Bigby hadn't shared his "handy" (heh) spells with the masses, and enemy Wizards had come to kill him? They'd either not be much of a match for him, or he'd more than double his wealth after he looted the corpse of even a single attacker. And, if he's with a party, the enemy is either even deader, or forced to bring a (very lootable) party of their own.

Seriously, most parties would pay to have loot and XP come to them like this. If they found out that this was how things worked, they'd give up adventuring, and just start *advertising* that they've got a Wizard who keeps his spellbook on him!

Now I totally want to run that campaign.


Players not keeping their spell knowledge safe and hidden is on them, a game master playing non-adventuring magic-users like they're foolish adventurers is on the game master. AD&D has several spells for the explicit purpose of hiding and storing items, such as secret chest.

AFB - what's the fail rate on that spell?


See, this is a relevant strategic difference between how you've played your game and I' ve played mine. Because in my games:


- even if you're on the road, having your travel book in a sealed box in a saddlebag or inside a wagon after you've prepared your spells (and you often don't even prepare new spells each day) is preferable to having it on your person.

In a waterproof container, at the bottom of the water / wine barrel was one the safest locations via mundane methods, IME.


- if you're exploring a ruin or dungeon, leaving said sealed box under a random rock near a base camp is preferable to having it on your person.

In many of my campaigns, you'd come out of the dungeon to find that box empty. "Following an adventuring party" is one of the safest ways to gain loot!

Also, Wizard is a sad panda when they get sucked to another plane / reality without their spellbook.


- at higher levels, use secret chest or other pocket dimension spell. Or have some kind of a mobile fortress, such as a guarded warship, to keep your book in.

Never had the latter; the former tends to fail on the planes.


- at highest levels, you always have word of recall, teleport, etc. at hand for the specific purpose of returning to a safe location at will.

Curiously, almost no-one ever did that. But I cannot deny the efficacy of the 15 minute workday.


Being three weeks away from some kind of a safehouse is not a thing you want to happen. Are you in hot pursuit or being pursued by an enemy? Then it's excusable. But if you are not under pressing threat, establishing a safe location to retreat, rest and store vulnerable equipment in is step one of adventuring. Several spells exist explicitly for these purposes.

Halls of the High King, the party takes a multi-week boat trip to a foreign land at the start of act 1. And lots of things / places do (or should) get set on fire. And enemy thieves are very much a thing. It *really* shouldn't feel safe to leave your spellbook anywhere.


@Quertus: the rant about hidden spellbooks in AD&D is misplaced. Under AD&D paradigm, there are few to no good reasons for a magic-user to carry a spellbook on their person - even a travel spellbook. The book is used to prepare spells, not to cast them, and the time cost of preparing spells is big enough that it's rarely practical to do on the field, so even a travel spellbook is best left hidden in a safehouse or destroyed after use - hidden or destoyed, because spells are secret information. Magic-users don't want potential enemies to have their hands on their research, information isn't free, it's dangerous and best kept in a locked box. That is also the real reason why a reward of 1 new spell per person is generous.

So, all that said, yes, there's lots of good reasons to carry a copy of your spellbook on your person: it's protected by your abjurations, long trips, planar / reality travel, thieves, arson, attract XP and loot.

And it certainly would have been smarter for sometime who had "been a pirate for four seasons" to have carried a travel spellbook to refresh their spells, rather than carrying 10 copies of scrolls of [affect normal fires, change self, charm person, magic missile, ESP, invisibility x3, mist magic, dispel magic, fly x3, wizard eye, and maybe fire shield and mass invisibility]. The time and cost of creating those scrolls seems pretty boggling to me - and the idea that a pirate might handle 10 ship-boarding encounters (plus whatever aquatic random encounters they might have) on just one load of spells? That sounds like truly Realms-worthy thinking. :smallamused:

Telok
2021-12-12, 09:02 PM
Well you're also assuming the DM didn't do something like spring thier personal interpretation of the first Dragonlance book on your party of 4th level characters.

"Suddenly dragons! All your homes and stuff other than what you're cattying is destroyed."
<soon>
"We're both wizards, trade spells?" "No."
<later>
"Suddenly a dragon! It breaths on one of the wizards <roll> you, save against <roll> 40 damage. And your stuff.. oh, more than double? Ok your stuff is gone too*. You Mr. Forced-to-be-a-cleric, burn a charge of your staff to raise him."

Yeah, over 30 years ago. We were kids with the core three books. Damn shame I'm still seeing new DMs read the DMG and make those same sorts of mistakes.

*pretty sure he didn't remember wizards had to cast Read Magic to read another wizards spellbook and you lost all memorized spells when you died. I spent the rest of the (very short & doomed) campaign being rather more useful than the other guy who cast two magic missiles and tapped out.

Pex
2021-12-12, 09:54 PM
Well you're also assuming the DM didn't do something like spring thier personal interpretation of the first Dragonlance book on your party of 4th level characters.

"Suddenly dragons! All your homes and stuff other than what you're cattying is destroyed."
<soon>
"We're both wizards, trade spells?" "No."
<later>
"Suddenly a dragon! It breaths on one of the wizards <roll> you, save against <roll> 40 damage. And your stuff.. oh, more than double? Ok your stuff is gone too*. You Mr. Forced-to-be-a-cleric, burn a charge of your staff to raise him."

Yeah, over 30 years ago. We were kids with the core three books. Damn shame I'm still seeing new DMs read the DMG and make those same sorts of mistakes.

*pretty sure he didn't remember wizards had to cast Read Magic to read another wizards spellbook and you lost all memorized spells when you died. I spent the rest of the (very short & doomed) campaign being rather more useful than the other guy who cast two magic missiles and tapped out.

And you wonder why I keep ranking on 2E and DM tyranny. It's no coincidence my favorite DM at the time was the one DM who didn't do all the things I complain about. He was a nice fellow out of game too, but we were really just friendly college acquaintances.

Ignimortis
2021-12-13, 04:44 AM
New user who found this thread and lurked for a bit, hello :)

Not sure if this is unpopular but: failing in D&D 5E is boring and unrewarding. There's no mechanical character growth that comes from it so you just do less.

5E combat feels like somebody played a JRPG and said "I like this a lot but I really wish it were slower and we had to do this by hand"

All game I've played don't really have mechanical character growth from failure. I've heard of games with such a mechanic, but they're not exactly common. Failing usually isn't fun in most games, really.

Lacco
2021-12-13, 05:33 AM
Failing usually isn't fun in most games, really.

Dwarf Fortress would like to have a word with you:


Dwarf Fortress would like to have a word with you. The word is decorated with bands of microcline and meanaces with spikes of rose gold. On the word is an image of the word in cinnabar.

The whole motto of the game is "Losing is fun!"

While I understand why this concept is a bit unpopular, failing can be entertaining, fulfilling or even a goal of certain games. It can be a part of character growth, a good motivator, a good "salt & pepper" for the steak of victory. Without failure, victory tends to feel bland. I enjoy a good steamrolling of opponents just like the other guy, but without failures, the "fun" is not "fun" in most games. Unpopular enough? :smallsmile:

Batcathat
2021-12-13, 05:57 AM
The whole motto of the game is "Losing is fun!"

While I understand why this concept is a bit unpopular, failing can be entertaining, fulfilling or even a goal of certain games. It can be a part of character growth, a good motivator, a good "salt & pepper" for the steak of victory. Without failure, victory tends to feel bland. I enjoy a good steamrolling of opponents just like the other guy, but without failures, the "fun" is not "fun" in most games. Unpopular enough? :smallsmile:

I think the point was that failure isn't very interesting from a mechanical standpoint, rather than in general. I think most people would agree with you that a game with no chance of failure would be pretty boring (though I suspect there would be a lot of arguing over how big that chance should be :smallamused: ).

Morgaln
2021-12-13, 07:56 AM
If I remember correctly, Call of Cthulhu lets you increase a skill when you fail a check against that skill. So that game lets you transfer failure into better stats directly.

Funnily enough, when I did a one session scenario for CoC once, one of the players was actually disappointed that he succeeded at every roll, because it meant he wasn't going to get any increases at the end. Even though it was a one-shot where advancement was irrelevant.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-13, 08:11 AM
@Vahnavoi, I've not seen worlds as… naively paranoid as you describe. IME, 2e Wizards would never have a (travel) spellbook in a saddlebag or inside the wagon. They would have it ("in a sealed box") either…
on their person (protected by their abjurations), or
in their saddlebag, on the wagon, on every PC and NPC hireling and henchman they can convince to spare the encumbrance, *and* half a dozen extra places as well.


At low levels, player characters don't have access to many suitable abjurations nor do they have money for many retainers or redundant copies of spellbooks. Magical means are not a replacement for mundane ones at that point, at best they're cherry on top. Meanwhile, beasts of burden, such as donkeys and horses, and then carts and wagons, are basically the next step up from walking everywhere on foot, and among the earliest mobile platforms for storing excess loot and equipment on. Never making common sense use of them and always carrying your spellbook on your person is more "naively paranoid" than any idea I've posed.

By the time you can afford as many copies and loyal retainers as you want, you are close to or above name level and are capable of having an actual stronghold of your own to store important copies in.


But this was based on the general attitude that the PCs never knew where the adventure might take them - or for how long. And also certainly based on the understanding of how items could be lost to saving throws.

In the original Greyhawk model of "adventure for a day, rest and get drunk"? Sure, it'd make perfect sense to leave your spellbook behind.

You seem to forget the "Greyhawk model" requires adventurers are halfway competent at setting camps, even while on a journey. Being on journey does not mean you have no safe spots for retreat or storing items. It also doesn't mean having all your possesions on your person all day long.


Did "stealing magic research" happen? Well, yes. Were the PCs paranoid about it? Um… let's see…
if someone kills me, I'm dead, what do i care what secrets they learn from my corpse (note that getting my spellbook off my corpse vs Speak with Dead and getting it from my hiding place are roughly equally easy, and I'm just as dead either way)
if it's easy to steal from my many copies? either
I never hear from them again, means they didn't kill me, i win, or
they come back, and either
i kill them easily (free XP) or
they have good loot and Wizard HP, even better!
Regardless, NPC Wizards that are *improved* by learning *my* tricks are still not any worse than the monsters (like Dragons and beholders) that I'm fighting anyway.



In my games, player characters' henchmen and retainers are next in line to be played in case a character dies. Which means that a spellbook left with them or set up to be recoverable by them means the book returns to the hand of that player soon enough. A spellbook looted from a captured or dead character, meanwhile, is lost and now in the hands of the enemy.

As for stolen copies, you yourself likened spells to recipes for explosives. The analogy should make it self-evident why you care about said copies being stolen, you don't want your explosives neutered or used against you. It's optimistic to assume stolen information never comes to bite you when said information is by default weaponized and dangerous. It's even sillier to assume surrendering advantages won't make fights worse.

Oh, and since you keep bringing up Speak with the Dead... that's not universally available spell. In games I've played, taking information security seriously means it can even stay that way. :smalltongue:


That, of course, was the real reason at many tables, surely, and Ed Greenwood appears to fall into that paradigm in spades.

What you and Pex omit is that the game master being unwilling to surrender powerful spells to the hands of players is perfectly congruent with the in-character motivation of magic-users to keep their spells out of the hands of adventurers, following the logic above. Also, that Ed Greenwood started his work with 1st edition and some 1st edition assumptions carry into his 2nd edition work.


Quertus just realized that, obviously, Bigby, Mordenkainen, Rary, Evard, and company didn't keep their spells to themselves - that getting their spells out there, in circulation, was important for spreading their fame. Thus, he tended towards trading "Quertus' Spell Star".

Quertus, then, did not consider the even more likely alternative: that the spells marketed as "Bigby's" etc. are cheap knockoffs reverse-enginereed by separate people, who are just riding on the fame of more established wizards to make money. The named people may have invented the originals, but that doesn't mean the originals were ever disseminated among lesser casters. Real life example of this happening: snake oil. So much so, snake oil salesman became synonym for fraudulent marketing.


Yup. So, if you don't want to waste *days* when you get back to base, you want to keep your spells topped off (or as close as you can get) while you're on the road.

Which is why you set up camp daily or, at higher levels, have some kind of mobile fortress with you, so you never are too far away from a safe location. Also, the best way to keep your spells topped in transit is to use as few and as low level as possible during travel. Or stock up on scrolls.


Good. The d4 HP imbeciles are welcome to "come and get it"; I'll use Speak with Dead to pry the location of their "hidden" spellbooks from their cold, dead minds. And enemy Wizards drop the best loot!

Excuse me, but you were complaining about NPC magic-users going out of their way to hide their spellbooks so you CAN'T loot them. In the situation under discussion, YOU are the d4 HP imbecile, lusting over spells you have no business having. :smalltongue:


No, seriously. If (for example) Bigby hadn't shared his "handy" (heh) spells with the masses, and enemy Wizards had come to kill him? They'd either not be much of a match for him, or he'd more than double his wealth after he looted the corpse of even a single attacker. And, if he's with a party, the enemy is either even deader, or forced to bring a (very lootable) party of their own.

You are again assuming the famous wizards shared their spells or were made famous by their spells. Both are dubious assumptions, neither needs to ve true. Also, all the named wizards had their share of powerful enemies, whom they kept their secrets from; they largely survived by being better at keeping secrets and at revealing secrets of others than their competition. More importantly, the average adventurer has a long way to go before they're Bigby or Mordenkainen or whoever. That someone who already made it big can surrender some information that's no longer vital to them, does not mean you can.


Seriously, most parties would pay to have loot and XP come to them like this. If they found out that this was how things worked, they'd give up adventuring, and just start *advertising* that they've got a Wizard who keeps his spellbook on him!

Tested and found to be false - players don't actually appreciate being constantly hounded by bandits, wandering monsters etc. after their stuff. In fact, they disliked it so much that today, a game master doing this is likely to get shouted at by their players.


AFB - what's the fail rate on [secret chest]?

High enough that you don't want to keep your primary spellbook in one, low enough to serve as temporary safeguard for travel spellbooks and other vulnerable consumables.


In many of my campaigns, you'd come out of the dungeon to find that box empty. "Following an adventuring party" is one of the safest ways to gain loot!

If your camp is easy to loot when you're away, it's also easy to attack when you retreat there to rest, meaning you failed step one of setting up a safe camp. Nevermind that if someone's following you for months and months, that falls under the active pursuit clause I mentioned earlier.


Also, Wizard is a sad panda when they get sucked to another plane / reality without their spellbook.

At lower levels, virtually anything capable sending you to another reality against your will, is also capable of separating you from your items. By higher levels, when this kind of threat is common and not a force majeure you can't reasonably prepare for, the correct defense is to have dimensional anchor or some spell capable of returning you to your home reality. Hugging a spellbook just in case this happens is last of last ditch options - there isn't any guarantee of having a chance to prepare spells on the other side.

Planned incursions to the planes are a different thing entirely. If you're planning a long-term or one-way trip, that's a good enough reason to bring your entire library. But it's also good enough reason to establish a new home base in the target worlds. At highest levels, you aren't going there in person if you can avoid it, you'll be sending a clone or astrally projecting, while your body and spellbooks remain safe in your tower.


Never had the latter; the former tends to fail on the planes.

Never finding secret chest or other by-the-book methods that exist for pretty much just this purpose is pretty sad; never find a warship or other mobile fortress capable of planar travel is a sign you should've convinced your game master to pick Spelljammer over Planescape. :smalltongue:


Curiously, almost no-one ever did that. But I cannot deny the efficacy of the 15 minute workday.

If no-one ever did that at you table, you're the anomaly. That's the most common sense use of word of recall and teleport, to the point this whole concept was copied over to videogames and has been repeated a thousand times in them - word of recall in Angband, town portal in Diablo, Homeward Bone in Dark Souls etc.

"15-minute workday" is only tangentially related. That happens when you spill your whole load at earliest opportunity and immediately retreat. I'm simply talking about obvious intended use of using fast travel spells to get back to a safe location when the need arises.



Halls of the High King, the party takes a multi-week boat trip to a foreign land at the start of act 1. And lots of things / places do (or should) get set on fire. And enemy thieves are very much a thing. It *really* shouldn't feel safe to leave your spellbook anywhere.

A "boat" capable of traveling for weeks with adventurers as passengers is big enough to fit the "mobile fortress" clause, and figuring out how to safely pack your stuff is step one of travel by ship. It's not a reason to hug your books. They aren't going to be safer on your person than in a fireproof, watertight container. As for the thieves, thieves are precisely one of the reasons why you'd leave valuables behind lock and key and hidden. Applies to D&D just as much as real life. Again, low level abjurations don't replace mundane means. Your books aren't safer on your person than they are in a hidden, locked compartment.



And it certainly would have been smarter for sometime who had "been a pirate for four seasons" to have carried a travel spellbook to refresh their spells, rather than carrying 10 copies of scrolls of [affect normal fires, change self, charm person, magic missile, ESP, invisibility x3, mist magic, dispel magic, fly x3, wizard eye, and maybe fire shield and mass invisibility]. The time and cost of creating those scrolls seems pretty boggling to me - and the idea that a pirate might handle 10 ship-boarding encounters (plus whatever aquatic random encounters they might have) on just one load of spells? That sounds like truly Realms-worthy thinking. :smallamused:

That set-up has heavy up-front cost, yes. That's not the same as not being smart. Due to those spells being stored in scrolls, no further spell preparation needs to be done in transit, freeing said pirate to do other things. Scrolls can be transcribed into a spellbook, so given time and opportunity, a fraction of those scrolls can be turned into a travel spellbook. The individual spell scrolls can be more easily and safely separated and traded, can be given to minions capable of using them, destroy themselves after use and, if needed, can bring significantly more firepower to the front than what a magic-user merely able to cast these spells is usually capable of in a day.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-13, 09:53 AM
That was the common theme of 2E. Everything was expensive as a means to drain a PCs treasure hoard, so he needs to adventure to get more treasure. The Monty Hall campaign was a common derision at that time. That approach came in AD&D 1e and OD&D, and was well documented in Dragon magazine and elsewhere (The AD&D 1e DMG even mentions the gold-rush-town-price-inflation model as an example). All of this before 2e was a glimmer in Zeb Cook's imagination.

It wasn't outright hostility because there needed to be a game, but players were on the metaphorical leash. AD&D 1e moreso than 2e, but I can guess that plenty of 1e experienced DM's carried that 'feel' over into 2e. My growing years taught me the "give 'em enough rope" approach, and it still works.

"Entitlement" was their buzzword. We also see an impact on over two decades of RPG development as a hobby and new/other approaches to RPGs informing all player expectations, as well as video and CRPG influence in terms of audience/player expectations.

4E was grounding the both of them. No supper. No tv. RL laughter happened here. :smallbiggrin:

5E didn't bring back the leash. Instead, it locked the DM and player in a room and told them they're not leaving until they get along. After arguing back and forth compromise was reached. A window was opened - the early splat books. The door was unlocked - Xanathar. They can have supervised free play - modules and gameworld source books with Eberron as a Christmas present. Finally they're set free - Tasha. Old tensions simmer. It's to be determined if 5.5E brings peace or open warfare again. Interesting analysis. And if anyone wonders why there seems to be a shortage of DMs...that simmering tension may inform that. Worlds Without Number (which I am browsing through these days during quiet time) has an interesting take on Player/DM interactions and styles.

The 1e DMG was "You will only get spells by murdering people, unless you are bad with money." Not quite true. In some cases, yeah, after fighting the magic user you may find their stuff. You could also find them (1) by stealing them, or (2) find them during one of those "dig into the old tower and defeat the monster that's been sitting there since it ate that old wizard...but hasn't the manual dexterity nor inclination to open that box hidden in the back of the locked wardrobe. Oh, yeah, and the box/chest has a poison trap on it... and the false bottom has explosive runes on the cover ..."
Most people I played with just ignored all that process, discard the minimum number, and roll to learn as they found each copy of a spell, up to their max. And I gather that was common. We mostly rolled as we encountered / discovered new scrolls or new books. Another nod to Vance was that you had to have a certain amount of incredible brain power just to try and handle a high level spell (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/12311/22566). (Hence the INT restrictions on 6th and above from Greyhawk on).

5E combat feels like somebody played a JRPG and said "I like this a lot but I really wish it were slower and we had to do this by hand" It's faster than the previous two editions. Not as fast as the original.

and we sure as heck didn't destroy our own books. So while your idea here is interesting, I do not think it is a 100% understood thing for the old AD&D. My experience was similar.

Thus why you have travel books that contain a subset of spells that makes sense for the road. We all did that. It's where a lot of our share of the treasure went between adventures. Making that 'traveling' spell book or a backup.

There's nothing sad about it, said "nicer universe" was simply not desired from a game design viewpoint. Literary inspirations behind D&D magic involve Vance, Lovecraft, Howard, the bible, etc. - works where information is both inherently and consequentally dangerous and where magic-users are secretive both towards non-magicians and ESPECIALLY other magic-users. Forgotten Realms doesn't even have the most severe examples of this, out of all D&D settings. FR is full of a wholly different flavor than the designer's worlds, but in the era that it arose nobody cared: each table had its own flavor. Where FR got so much traction was in the novels, I suspect, written by a lot of writers who are better at fiction that Ed G.

The entire method of getting spells from other NPCs, without killing them, was bonkers to me.

"I will trade spells with you, but only if you give me WAY more value than I am going to possibly give you." Ever been to a Turkey and tried to buy a rug? It's a fascinating exercise in dickering, negotiation, bargaining, and human interaction. For people raised on department stores and supermarkets, it's an eye opener. See also markets in Italy, where I lived, where I learned the phrase mi fa un sconto (or uno sconto) and its application in a similar exchange. See also offered and accepted prices for a house, if you've ever bought or sold a house. See also the offer and acceptance of a price for a commodity or a stock purchase on Wall Street or other trading house.

There's a negotiation involved in the vending of expensive / valuable items. The core assumption of D&D before the video game era was that magic was rare, expensive, and dangerous. That feel has been lost, somewhat. Harry Potter style magic seems to be more popular ... the stories we are most familiar with may shape our expecations.

Well you're also assuming the DM didn't do something like spring their personal interpretation of the first Dragonlance book on your party of 4th level characters.

"Suddenly dragons! All your homes and stuff other than what you're carrying is destroyed."
<soon>
"We're both wizards, trade spells?" "No."
<later>
"Suddenly a dragon! It breaths on one of the wizards <roll> you, save against <roll> 40 damage. And your stuff.. oh, more than double? Ok your stuff is gone too*. You Mr. Forced-to-be-a-cleric, burn a charge of your staff to raise him."

Yeah, over 30 years ago. We were kids with the core three books. Damn shame I'm still seeing new DMs read the DMG and make those same sorts of mistakes. Seen those too. :smallfrown:


*pretty sure he didn't remember wizards had to cast Read Magic to read another wizards spellbook and you lost all memorized spells when you died. That was in the AD&D 1e DMG IIRC. (OK, I found what I was looking for)

Obviously, an apprentice must know how to read magic to be of use to his master. It is also an absolute must to anyone following the profession of magic-user, so that spell is AUTOMATICALLY on each magic-user characters list of known spells. Then select by random means one spell each from the offensive, defensive, and miscellaneous categories listed below... any other player character magic-user will than have a total of 4 - count them - 4 spells with which to seek his (or her) fortune! {Three lists follow}...Note that both Nystul's Magic Aura and Tenser's Floating Disc must be located by the character; they can never be known at the start. {snip a bit} If your campaign is particularly difficult, you may wish to allow choice automatically. You can furthermore allow an extra defensive or miscellaneous spell, so that the character begins with 5 spells. I had a lot of DM's allow us to pick one from each column; I had two who rolled and told us what we knew to start.

Finding new spells was a key motivation for the Magic User PC. It was baked into the class. If you risk your life to get that arcane knowledge/power, you may value it a lot more than if you get it for free.

Dwarf Fortress would like to have a word with you: So would Great Orc Gods. :smallbiggrin:

If I remember correctly, Call of Cthulhu lets you increase a skill when you fail a check against that skill. So that game lets you transfer failure into better stats directly.
Tunnels and Trolls does that as well. (The edition I own, which IIRC is 5th ed T&T). When you make a saving roll (which is used for a lot of skill checks) you can get points, and IIRC we got more if we didn't succeed. Our campaign was sadly shortened recently by RL.

Pex
2021-12-13, 01:05 PM
I'll take people's word for it about 1E. I hadn't played it except briefly in high school when I really didn't know anything about the game or what I was doing. I count 2E as my first official foray into D&D during college. I didn't know 2E had just came out when I started playing it. We were college students but still had that lack of maturity. :smallyuk:

icefractal
2021-12-13, 03:25 PM
Obviously YMMV, and this is influenced by the games I was personally in or heard about, but the idea of "paranoia = leave your spellbook somewhere you can't see it" seems bizarre to me.

I used to be a paranoid player, and rule #1 of that paranoia was:
Don't trust in anything but yourself, and possibly the other party members.

Keeps got invaded when you weren't around. Followers died if you sent them to do anything dangerous, which "guard our stuff in a hostile area" certainly qualified as. Travel plans changed unexpectedly, sometimes with no chance to return to any given place. NPC allies might turn on you. Social titles could be taken away as easily as they were given. Anywhere you put your stuff left it in danger of being stolen, but at least if it was on your person then you had a chance to prevent it (or could reasonably call BS). Buried nearby? Stored in a keep? Kept in a secure vault? All just different routes that could lead to "while you were away, someone took/destroyed your stuff ..."

Now I'm not endorsing this attitude, it's assuming an adversarial relationship which isn't usually the case and pretty much never should be. But that's what I think of when I think paranoia. Leaving your spellbook off in the distance is practically handing the GM an invitation - "feel free to steal it as a plot hook".

MoiMagnus
2021-12-13, 04:18 PM
The more I read the discussion about spellbooks, the more I'm convinced it hugely depends on GMing style (which itself heavily depends on the other peoples the GM has played with in his past).

Sure, the enemy could get stronger by stealing your spellbook, but by how much? Could it have reached the same strength by other means? There is some good chances that had the stealing not happen, the enemies would have found other ways to get stronger (like stealing from a NPC), even if not as strong.

Sure, having a good spellbook might attract robbers, but by how much? Is there really that many fools in the world ready to risk their life against a Wizard known to have that high of a body count? Also, will the GM actually sacrifice fun of the table, or will he just be satisfied in putting some somewhat regular encounters to keep the theme of "peoples want your stuff" but without pushing it to the point where the players are actually bored out of having similar encounters?

Different GMs will likely lead to different optimal behaviour, and it's even likely that multiple equilibrium exists. A world in which the optimal behaviour is to have a high amount of backups is a world where clever NPCs have a high amount of backups, so it's a world in which keeping your knowledge secret is less important as the NPCs have already plenty of way to acquire knowledge out of each others, making it "even more optimal" to have a high amount of backup. A world in which the optimal behaviour is to keep your secrets is a world in which it is possible for some specific spell to be totally absent of the circulation (and not appear randomly in the spellbook of a no-name caster), making it even more important for peoples having this spell to keep their privilege, making it "even more optimal" to keep your spellbook secret at all cost (even after death if you care about your heir).

Telok
2021-12-13, 04:41 PM
Honestly the whole spellbook thing is so utterly DM dependent that it can't really be dealt with except on a DM-by-DM basis. Whether a wiz needed, wanted, should, could, do backups & travel books is totally dependent on the type and magnitude of the DMs jerk-ass or clueless. Good DM? No terrible problems, will tell you or clue you in as to how they run things, and if backup/travel books are important they let you make & secure them.

Bad DM? How it goes will be totally dependent on the DMs particular faults. Some you can put copies on each party member and it takes a TPK to un-wizard you, others may fiat theft of all your books to fit their "story-plot". My bad DM just didn't think about it and when the spellbooks got nuked as side effects of "story" we un-wizzed because we'd never had a chance to do anything other than stay ahead of the plot steam-roller behind us.

You can still get nearly the same in 5e today, just have a no-share, no-sell, & very rare scrolls DM and have the book nuked while you have your 'in town social encounters' spells memorized or you'd swapped out for some special circumstance. Prep a bunch of fire spells to fight ice demons, book gets nuked, then spend the rest of the campaign on the plane of fire where no books because !!fire!!. Bad DM is bad DM, but you can at least warn new/ignorant DMs with a blurb in the DMG or something.

Talakeal
2021-12-13, 04:42 PM
IMO the whole thing boils down to neither tyrannical DMs nor realism, but rather a heavy handed attempt to make the core concept of killing stuff to get stronger make sense.

Just like in 3.X I often gave NPCs inherent bonuses rather than magic items. My players ofc threw fits because it felt like cheating, but the reason I did it is because it is impossible to actually maintain the reward cycle of killing, looting, and shopping when every kill doubles your wealth.

TLDR, its a gamist kludge to keep PCs and NPCs unique and to make sure getting new spells always feels rewarding.

Quertus
2021-12-13, 07:47 PM
At low levels, player characters don't have access to many suitable abjurations nor do they have money for many retainers or redundant copies of spellbooks. Magical means are not a replacement for mundane ones at that point, at best they're cherry on top. Meanwhile, beasts of burden, such as donkeys and horses, and then carts and wagons, are basically the next step up from walking everywhere on foot, and among the earliest mobile platforms for storing excess loot and equipment on. Never making common sense use of them and always carrying your spellbook on your person is more "naively paranoid" than any idea I've posed.

Even at high level, not all PCs had Ride proficiency. And not all roads - and very few off-road excursions - were suitable for a wagon. So these were not necessarily good investments.

If the PCs *did* have such, yes, they make great places to store extra copies of your spellbook… *if* you trust your companions, henchmen, hirelings, etc.


By the time you can afford as many copies and loyal retainers as you want, you are close to or above name level and are capable of having an actual stronghold of your own to store important copies in.

That doesn't match my experience. AFB, but IIRC a book, quill & ink run much, much less than a horse.


You seem to forget the "Greyhawk model" requires adventurers are halfway competent at setting camps, even while on a journey. Being on journey does not mean you have no safe spots for retreat or storing items. It also doesn't mean having all your possesions on your person all day long.

Suppose Evard wants Bigby's spells. Is it easier to get them from Bigby, or from Bigby's camp while Bigby is out? Which location encourages Evard to come (or send his agents) more? IMO, "back at camp" is the juicier target.


In my games, player characters' henchmen and retainers are next in line to be played in case a character dies. Which means that a spellbook left with them or set up to be recoverable by them means the book returns to the hand of that player soon enough. A spellbook looted from a captured or dead character, meanwhile, is lost and now in the hands of the enemy.

0) remember, the context is the claim that my rant about hidden spellbooks is misplaced.

1) that's the player, not the character; that's metagaming, not role-playing.

2) we're talking 2e, not "your table" (unless you happen to be Ed Greenwood, or game at his table, which…). Citation on this being a standard 2e rule?

3) even if this *were* a standard 2e rule, and even if we didn't care about role-playing and only cared about the player, my rant is about NPCs.

3a) (by definition, NPCs don't have players)

4) also, more often than not, it's not "the enemy", but an unknown agent you'll never see again, a rival, or even a fellow PC stealing your book.


As for stolen copies, you yourself likened spells to recipes for explosives. The analogy should make it self-evident why you care about said copies being stolen, you don't want your explosives neutered or used against you. It's optimistic to assume stolen information never comes to bite you when said information is by default weaponized and dangerous. It's even sillier to assume surrendering advantages won't make fights worse.

Again, more likely that it *won't* impact you, personally and directly, than that it will. After all, whoever has your spellbook already has your spellbook - why should they care about you any more?


Oh, and since you keep bringing up Speak with the Dead... that's not universally available spell. In games I've played, taking information security seriously means it can even stay that way. :smalltongue:

Um… now, I know I'm senile, and get things confused, but…

In 2e, is it not the case that
Speak with Dead is a Cleric 2 spell;
by default (ie, outside things like specialty priests from Faiths and Avatars), Clerics get access to "all the spells"?


Unless I'm really confused, it's pretty dang trivial.


What you and Pex omit is that the game master being unwilling to surrender powerful spells to the hands of players is perfectly congruent with the in-character motivation of magic-users to keep their spells out of the hands of adventurers, following the logic above. Also, that Ed Greenwood started his work with 1st edition and some 1st edition assumptions carry into his 2nd edition work.

Ed Greenwood's works not making sense in 2e is kinda my point - you can't really refute it with, "Ed Greenwood's works don't make sense in 2e". :smallwink:


Quertus, then, did not consider the even more likely alternative: that the spells marketed as "Bigby's" etc. are cheap knockoffs reverse-enginereed by separate people, who are just riding on the fame of more established wizards to make money. The named people may have invented the originals, but that doesn't mean the originals were ever disseminated among lesser casters. Real life example of this happening: snake oil. So much so, snake oil salesman became synonym for fraudulent marketing.

You are correct, Quertus did not consider that possibility. He is… poorly suited to such games of deception. That psychological flaw may be related to why he has researched so many custom information-gathering spells… :smallamused:

That said, fortunately, we have stats on those characters, and no such discrepancies are listed.


Which is why you set up camp daily or, at higher levels, have some kind of mobile fortress with you, so you never are too far away from a safe location. Also, the best way to keep your spells topped in transit is to use as few and as low level as possible during travel. Or stock up on scrolls.

Also good options. Note that I made fun of Ed Greenwood's NPCs for failing that way, too.


Excuse me, but you were complaining about NPC magic-users going out of their way to hide their spellbooks so you CAN'T loot them. In the situation under discussion, YOU are the d4 HP imbecile, lusting over spells you have no business having. :smalltongue:

I should really QUOTE myself here, but… to paraphrase, the context is "enemy Wizards know that their best source of spells is other Wizards", to which my response is, "if they think that way? If they come to get my books? I'd rather face them in person, where their d4 HP and inferiority to me (because why else would they steal my spells?) makes them so much weaker than the monsters my party usually kills, they're like free loot and free XP by comparison. So, to them I say, 'come and get it!'. And I'm sure my party feels the same".

In that context, your response *only* makes sense if the PCs specifically hunted down the NPC Wizards for the express purpose of killing them for their spellbooks, as opposed to the module hurling the suicidally homicidal NPCs at the party.


You are again assuming the famous wizards shared their spells or were made famous by their spells. Both are dubious assumptions, neither needs to ve true.

Granted. That said, canon sources say that they *are* the spells, however they came to be in circulation.


Also, all the named wizards had their share of powerful enemies, whom they kept their secrets from; they largely survived by being better at keeping secrets and at revealing secrets of others than their competition.

Citation?


More importantly, the average adventurer has a long way to go before they're Bigby or Mordenkainen or whoever.

Or Melf? Or Tasha? Or…

I think it's fair to say that the *average* adventurer is *better* than some of the Wizards that have spells named after them, and that an average Playgrounder is probably better than them all.


That someone who already made it big can surrender some information that's no longer vital to them, does not mean you can.

True. Hasn't been a problem for Quertus (granted, he's not exactly free with his "best" spells (not that anyone else could cast them)), and, really, given how much time most PCs spend fighting monsters IME, it's rarely a problem if some random Wizard knows one of more of their random spells, too.


Tested and found to be false - players don't actually appreciate being constantly hounded by bandits, wandering monsters etc. after their stuff. In fact, they disliked it so much that today, a game master doing this is likely to get shouted at by their players.

Eh? How does "what players appreciate" possibly figure into a question of whether or not a strategy is idiotic? I mean, "Wizards don't like losing their spellbooks, therefore 'keeping it on your person' should be perfectly safe" seems to follow that logic, yet leads to conclusions other than the ones you've drawn.

Also, "PCs love playing the bandits hounding the NPC adventuring party, *especially* if they follow your 'leave my spellbook behind' logic".


High enough that you don't want to keep your primary spellbook in one, low enough to serve as temporary safeguard for travel spellbooks and other vulnerable consumables.

Fair enough. Most players I've gamed with are too loss adverse to accept such, generally refusing to even use consumables. But that's obviously not a universal stance.


If your camp is easy to loot when you're away, it's also easy to attack when you retreat there to rest, meaning you failed step one of setting up a safe camp. Nevermind that if someone's following you for months and months, that falls under the active pursuit clause I mentioned earlier.

Eh, not exactly.

If, during the Time of Troubles, Selune met a couple of jesters on her way to find civilization, and left them to guard her spellbook while she popped into a dungeon for a few hours to gather extra items? Yeah, I think I'd steal her spellbook from camp, and not be interested in attacking her camp when she got back.

Point is, the PCs are the primary deterrent, IMO & IME, from PC-class infiltration.


At lower levels, virtually anything capable sending you to another reality against your will, is also capable of separating you from your items.

Most modules don't run that way. Most.

Most GMs that Isekai the party don't have them appear naked. Most.

Most portals aren't built by gods of perversion to strip the party. Most. My god of perversion, OTOH…

So, IME, that's *usually* not an issue.


By higher levels, when this kind of threat is common and not a force majeure you can't reasonably prepare for, the correct defense is to have dimensional anchor or some spell capable of returning you to your home reality. Hugging a spellbook just in case this happens is last of last ditch options - there isn't any guarantee of having a chance to prepare spells on the other side.

Citation on the existence of "Dimensional Anchor" in 2e?

And, while I agree with the general "bamph home" strategy, such "15mwd" cornerstones really weren't done much IME with 2e. (Insert Syndrome "help me help me lame lame lame")


Never finding secret chest or other by-the-book methods that exist for pretty much just this purpose is pretty sad; never find a warship or other mobile fortress capable of planar travel is a sign you should've convinced your game master to pick Spelljammer over Planescape. :smalltongue:

Too true. :smallfrown::smallannoyed:


If no-one ever did that at you table, you're the anomaly. That's the most common sense use of word of recall and teleport, to the point this whole concept was copied over to videogames and has been repeated a thousand times in them - word of recall in Angband, town portal in Diablo, Homeward Bone in Dark Souls etc.

I played at every table I could find, and… it just wasn't something that was done back then.

And, for reference on what "I haven't seen it" means, I gamed with every group I could find (except 1, long story), topping out at 6 sessions per week, and, last I tried, I still remembered the names of about 200 people I'd gamed with.

It wasn't just 1 table; IME, it just wasn't done.


"15-minute workday" is only tangentially related. That happens when you spill your whole load at earliest opportunity and immediately retreat. I'm simply talking about obvious intended use of using fast travel spells to get back to a safe location when the need arises.

We may have to disagree on how "obvious" that usage was. You saw it, I saw it, but most people I played with? Not so much.

Intended, though? Got a citation on that one?


A "boat" capable of traveling for weeks with adventurers as passengers is big enough to fit the "mobile fortress" clause, and figuring out how to safely pack your stuff is step one of travel by ship. It's not a reason to hug your books. They aren't going to be safer on your person than in a fireproof, watertight container.

Hmmm… So, turns out, according to the module, the boat burns to the waterline unless the PCs are there to defend it. Which matches my "PCs are the primary deterrent" logic.

Regardless, after the voyage, the PCs after in a foreign land, bereft of their previous safe places.


As for the thieves, thieves are precisely one of the reasons why you'd leave valuables behind lock and key and hidden. Applies to D&D just as much as real life. Again, low level abjurations don't replace mundane means. Your books aren't safer on your person than they are in a hidden, locked compartment.

Um… I don't know how you roleplay your PC Thieves, but… give me the option of "steal from dangerous Wizard" or "steal from a safe"? I'm choosing the safe.It sounds… safe. :smallwink:


That set-up has heavy up-front cost, yes. That's not the same as not being smart. Due to those spells being stored in scrolls, no further spell preparation needs to be done in transit, freeing said pirate to do other things. Scrolls can be transcribed into a spellbook, so given time and opportunity, a fraction of those scrolls can be turned into a travel spellbook. The individual spell scrolls can be more easily and safely separated and traded, can be given to minions capable of using them, destroy themselves after use and, if needed, can bring significantly more firepower to the front than what a magic-user merely able to cast these spells is usually capable of in a day.

If the pirate were written as not spamming spells like they were candy, that might make sense. Instead, her completely full spell loadout, her tactics, and that strategy are all three at odds.

RandomPeasant
2021-12-13, 08:02 PM
Obviously YMMV, and this is influenced by the games I was personally in or heard about, but the idea of "paranoia = leave your spellbook somewhere you can't see it" seems bizarre to me.

Paranoia is playing a Sorcerer. Or maybe a Druid or Cleric, though those invite other avenues for DMs to screw with you.


Sure, the enemy could get stronger by stealing your spellbook, but by how much?

If you're talking about the party's enemies, I don't think spellbook theft is happening to increase their power so much as to decrease the player's. It's not bad tactics so much as it is a shift in the social contract that can be unreasonably effective because people assumed they didn't need to take precautions. It's relatively easy to have backups against spellbook theft, but since that makes "your spellbook was stolen" uninteresting, most DMs won't steal the spellbook, meaning most players won't take the precaution, meaning that DMs who do are effectively metagaming against their players.


Just like in 3.X I often gave NPCs inherent bonuses rather than magic items. My players ofc threw fits because it felt like cheating, but the reason I did it is because it is impossible to actually maintain the reward cycle of killing, looting, and shopping when every kill doubles your wealth.

Once again, WBL delenda est. Enemies having non-item bonuses (or things like the Drow's disintegrating equipment in earlier editions) is crappy. The solution is to have a system where you cannot turn yourself into a demigod by lighting a large enough pile of gold on fire, or turn a hoard of +1 swords into a +10 sword. Then enemies can have regular equipment, and PCs can simply not use that equipment, or maybe get a marginal upgrade like turning a Lightning Axe into a Fire Spear because a Fire Spear works better for their character.

Gurgeh
2021-12-13, 08:21 PM
If you're talking about the party's enemies, I don't think spellbook theft is happening to increase their power so much as to decrease the player's. It's not bad tactics so much as it is a shift in the social contract that can be unreasonably effective because people assumed they didn't need to take precautions. It's relatively easy to have backups against spellbook theft, but since that makes "your spellbook was stolen" uninteresting, most DMs won't steal the spellbook, meaning most players won't take the precaution, meaning that DMs who do are effectively metagaming against their players.
Yes. Punishing people for failing to describe their elaborate security precautions is only worthwhile if the scenario is something the players enjoy. If the players don't want to play as paranoid murderhobo sociopaths then the world shouldn't expect them to be.

Or, from a non-RP and purely mechanical point of view: trying to balance something by making it tedious for the player to do is never a good idea.

Talakeal
2021-12-13, 08:56 PM
Once again, WBL delenda est. Enemies having non-item bonuses (or things like the Drow's disintegrating equipment in earlier editions) is crappy. The solution is to have a system where you cannot turn yourself into a demigod by lighting a large enough pile of gold on fire, or turn a hoard of +1 swords into a +10 sword. Then enemies can have regular equipment, and PCs can simply not use that equipment, or maybe get a marginal upgrade like turning a Lightning Axe into a Fire Spear because a Fire Spear works better for their character.

Much easier said than done.

Players like getting treasure, and like that treasure to have a mechanical benefit.

At the same time, enemies with lots of flavorful gizmos is fun, and depending on the system maybe mechanically necesary to keep up with the PCs.

Like, imagine if comic books worked under the same assumptions as D&D, where every time a villain was defeated their gadgets (and to make the analogy more apt, powers) were added to the hero's arsenal.

Batcathat
2021-12-14, 02:19 AM
Much easier said than done.

Players like getting treasure, and like that treasure to have a mechanical benefit.

At the same time, enemies with lots of flavorful gizmos is fun, and depending on the system maybe mechanically necesary to keep up with the PCs.

Like, imagine if comic books worked under the same assumptions as D&D, where every time a villain was defeated their gadgets (and to make the analogy more apt, powers) were added to the hero's arsenal.

I think Batman has used villain gadgets on occasion, at least. But yeah, it's not exactly common and that has always kind of bothered me a little. Someone creating revolutionary equipment and using it to rob banks is weird enough, no one else using said equipment for anything is even weirder.

Also, doesn't the solution of giving NPCs inherent bonuses instead of equipment go against the above reasoning just as much as RandomPeasant's suggestions? With the added "bonus" of possibly annoying players more, since having a system that relies a lot on magic items but not giving any seems less honest than having a system that relies less on magic items.

Ignimortis
2021-12-14, 02:55 AM
Much easier said than done.

Players like getting treasure, and like that treasure to have a mechanical benefit.

At the same time, enemies with lots of flavorful gizmos is fun, and depending on the system maybe mechanically necesary to keep up with the PCs.

Like, imagine if comic books worked under the same assumptions as D&D, where every time a villain was defeated their gadgets (and to make the analogy more apt, powers) were added to the hero's arsenal.

Using ABP sorta circumvents the issue (up to a point — the game still expects you to have at-will Flight, and Mind Blank, and Death Ward, etc). But at least enemies don't have to have magic swords and an array of armor items by level 8.

gnomish dwelf
2021-12-14, 03:50 AM
constitution, whenever higer than level, should determine hit dice.

Lucas Yew
2021-12-14, 05:08 AM
Once again, WBL delenda est. Enemies having non-item bonuses (or things like the Drow's disintegrating equipment in earlier editions) is crappy.


Also, doesn't the solution of giving NPCs inherent bonuses instead of equipment go against the above reasoning just as much as RandomPeasant's suggestions? With the added "bonus" of possibly annoying players more, since having a system that relies a lot on magic items but not giving any seems less honest than having a system that relies less on magic items.

TBH, it's less "annoyed" and more like "infernal wrath" for me, though my rationality and ethics keeps me from bull rushing my fellow player(s including the GM) equipped with torches and pitchforks...


Using ABP sorta circumvents the issue (up to a point — the game still expects you to have at-will Flight, and Mind Blank, and Death Ward, etc). But at least enemies don't have to have magic swords and an array of armor items by level 8.

A solid proven solution (if a bit band-aid-y). If I ever run a PF2 game, I'll run both the vanilla and ABP rules together, ruling that only the higher of item / potency bonus apply (to simulate a newbie adventurer picking up a +3 Major Striking greatsword by fate and actually benefiting).

icefractal
2021-12-14, 05:44 AM
Inherent bonuses are fine ... if the PCs can operate that way too, and if it's presented as "this guy with a bunch of permanent buffs, implied to have pretty serious backing" rather than "just a normal bandit".

When you have stuff like a normal person using low-quality equipment, but the numbers are set to match fully geared PCs, it makes the PCs look pretty crap. Wow, with significant magical augmentation you can be the equal of some random dude who's not trying that hard!

Tanarii
2021-12-14, 05:49 AM
Obviously YMMV, and this is influenced by the games I was personally in or heard about, but the idea of "paranoia = leave your spellbook somewhere you can't see it" seems bizarre to me.

I used to be a paranoid player, and rule #1 of that paranoia was:
Don't trust in anything but yourself, and possibly the other party members.
One failed save, and your spellbooks were in serious danger. If you failed a save all items on your person had to make a save or be destroyed, and paper had some pretty bad item saves.

Quertus
2021-12-14, 06:27 AM
Inherent bonuses are fine ... if the PCs can operate that way too, and if it's presented as "this guy with a bunch of permanent buffs, implied to have pretty serious backing" rather than "just a normal bandit".

When you have stuff like a normal person using low-quality equipment, but the numbers are set to match fully geared PCs, it makes the PCs look pretty crap. Wow, with significant magical augmentation you can be the equal of some random dude who's not trying that hard!

Caring too much about the NPCs Captain Hobo's the PCs. :smallannoyed:


One failed save, and your spellbooks were in serious danger. If you failed a save all items on your post had to make a save or be destroyed, and paper had some pretty bad item saves.

Citation? AFB, but iirc there was a… maybe 10 entry table, that said something like, "find the top 4 that apply, and roll a d4".


constitution, whenever higer than level, should determine hit dice.

I'm guessing you believe in HP as meat points? Or just that the healthy Wizard should hit more often than the Fighter?

gnomish dwelf
2021-12-14, 06:29 AM
I'm guessing you believe in HP as meat points? Or just that the healthy Wizard should hit more often than the Fighter?

I believe that the unexperienced commoner should have an equal chance that the experienced adventurer to survive from attrition, mind you, i come from 2nd edition, so I am not sure I would defend the same position for 3rd edition.

Khedrac
2021-12-14, 06:53 AM
constitution, whenever higher than level, should determine hit dice.

Ah - did you ever play or see a copy of Gamma World 1st or 2nd Ed? (Not sure about 3rd.)

There your Con score was your hit dice (adding points to stats under 18 was one of the bonuses one could choose for "levelling").
If I remember correctly 1st Ed was d6 hit dice for all, 2nd Ed started handing out bonuses for "pure strain humans" (other than having computers usually react positively to them) and one of them was d8 for hit dice.

gnomish dwelf
2021-12-14, 06:58 AM
Ah - did you ever play or see a copy of Gamma World 1st or 2nd Ed? (Not sure about 3rd.)

There your Con score was your hit dice (adding points to stats under 18 was one of the bonuses one could choose for "levelling").
If I remember correctly 1st Ed was d6 hit dice for all, 2nd Ed started handing out bonuses for "pure strain humans" (other than having computers usually react positively to them) and one of them was d8 for hit dice.

sounds nice but I really propose a hybrid system... most characters have 8 or 9 constitution, so most would have 8 or 9 hit dice... however those that level, if they level above their constitution, get hd based on level, so a 21st level adventurer is still better than a 0th leve commoner with 3-18 constitution (3-18 HD).

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-14, 08:06 AM
I count 2E as my first official foray into D&D during college. I give the 2e authors some credit. First off the prose style was more accessible. The books were a little bit better organized. The re organiztion of classes was a noteworthy effort, I have mixed feelings about it but it was coherent. But as with its predecessor, bloat was going to happen and it did. I liked the extra descriptions of monsters in the MM, personally. If you were going to start in AD&D rather than B/X-BECMI 2e was a lot easier to digest than 1e AD&D. They'd had a decade or so of experience and fan feedback to make a few course corrections.

but rather a heavy handed attempt to make the core concept of killing stuff to get stronger make sense. Which is unfortunately only part of the level progression concept from the original idea. And it very much took the game over in 3.x, unfortunately. The GP/XP approach and the monster XP, both together, was IMO the superior one. YMMV. Gave you multiple paths to advancement. Heck, getting XP for a magic item was a whole 'nother good idea, though its application was uneven from table to table.

If the players don't want to play as paranoid murderhobo sociopaths then the world shouldn't expect them to be. You can be paranoid without being a murder hobo and/or sociopath. My warlock, for example, pact of tome, chose Alarm as her first ritual ... because she is paranoid. :smallbiggrin:

One failed save, and your spellbooks were in serious danger. If you failed a save all items on your person had to make a save or be destroyed, and paper had some pretty bad item saves. Yep. Dragon's breath wiped out many an item in my experience, but man, rolling all of those saving throws took a while. Lesson learned was "Avoid Dragon's Breath!" :smallbiggrin:

Lord Torath
2021-12-14, 08:08 AM
Regarding the cost of spellbooks, I think in the 2E DMG they had rules about how much spellbooks cost and how many pages each spell took up in the spellbook and such. If I recall correctly, it was something outrageous like 2000 go for a 100 page spellbook, and 5000 gp for a smaller, lighter, 50 page spellbook, something really ridiculous. Maybe if it made spellbooks harder to destroy than regular books, but I don't reme,ber anything along those lines.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-14, 08:20 AM
Regarding the cost of spellbooks, I think in the 2E DMG they had rules about how much spellbooks cost and how many pages each spell took up in the spellbook and such. If I recall correctly, it was something outrageous like 2000 go for a 100 page spellbook, and 5000 gp for a smaller, lighter, 50 page spellbook, something really ridiculous. Maybe if it made spellbooks harder to destroy than regular books, but I don't reme,ber anything along those lines. We had a player in AD&D 1e who went to the trouble of having metal (steel with copper coating on the inside) boxex made to protect his spell books. The DM and he came up with a price, and this very much increased the saving throw of the books when someone laid a fireball on us. He even had, in the same book bag, a pottery container of beeswax to reseal the boxes when he stowed them.
Why?
The first time we ended up in the water the DM did a percentile check to see how much water intrusion happened, and a couple of the spells, randomly determined, were ruined. What I loved about the player was his response to that. Not "DM, you screwed me" but "how do I prevent that in the future" and beeswax is what he came up with.

When you embrace a modest amount of simulation/verisimilitude, stuff like that can be part of the fun.

Whenever he was in town, he was always scrambling for money and a chance to write another scroll. His scroll tubes were made of bone and had tapered wooden stoppers with, once again, beeswax seals. (He even provided the DM with a drawing/specs, yes, we were engineering students :smallsmile: ).

RandomPeasant
2021-12-14, 08:25 AM
Yes. Punishing people for failing to describe their elaborate security precautions is only worthwhile if the scenario is something the players enjoy.

It's similar to the attempts to balance planar binding by having devils weasel out of contracts. It sounds good at first glance, but the end result is a conflict of technicalities between the players and the DM that ends up not being fun.


Players like getting treasure, and like that treasure to have a mechanical benefit.

I didn't say no treasure, I said no WBL. Others in this thread have mentioned PF's ABP, while my preferred solution is Tome Magic Items (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_Magic_Items_(3.5e_Variant_Rule)). But the basic idea is that you make it so that you can't turn a big pile of crappy magic items into a game-breaking bonus. Then you can just give enemies treasure and that treasure can be different from the magic items the PCs currently have (and therefore rewarding to get), but not game-breaking. So you fight a bunch of Yuan-Ti and instead of having generic +1 swords and +1 chainmail and whatnot that go to the upgrade from +2 to +3 on your cloak of resistance, they have various snake-themed weapons (like acid whips and poison daggers) which have roughly the same bonuses as your current gear and you can use them if you think it is cooler to have a poison dagger than the ice hammer you got from when you fought some Frost Giants last adventure.

Milodiah
2021-12-14, 10:15 AM
Yeah, my stance on magic items is that I mostly detest the Just Numbers ones, like rings of protection and cloaks of resistance. I'm coming around to the idea of PF's ABP because my current GM is using it, and he managed to dissuade me from my stance on "I like muh barbie doll dressup how dare you take away muh magic item hoard" by pointing out that I had just said "Man I wish I could use this Cloak of Piercing but I can't really afford to get rid of this Cloak of Protection, my Fortitude AND Will saves suck ass".

When I'm DMing for 3.5/PF I spend a lot of time thinking about magic items, and usually end up creating my own at least once per Drop. I focus on getting a fine balance of "stuff I think my party would like to have" and "not making it obvious the GM is doing that", with the knowledge that anything they don't like they can certainly find a buyer for. Plus just enough of a sprinkling of trapped, cursed, or otherwise dangerous items to temper the impulse of "aw yeah free stuff!" with a bit of caution, but not so much to turn them off of Loot.

It really paid off with an entire arc that ended up getting started by a cursed scimitar that started some diabolical whispers to the glory hound fighter who was in it for the fame that the others were stealing the spotlight and downplaying your role in the heroics, especially the bard, who you never really liked anyway. They're trying to shut you out of your rightful place in the legends. You can't just let them do that, you know.

Plus, creating custom magic items lets me fiddle with game balance in little ways that wouldn't really be well suited to sweeping houserules. As much as I dislike 5e's massively expanded Concentration spell nerfs (which could probably be an entirely new chain in this thread), I acknowledge it'd take a lot of cautious houseruling to adjust without wrecking the built-in balancing decisions in unexpected ways. But I can offset it a little bit by giving the wizard my homebrewed Magemind Amulet, which lets him choose to either shunt one Concentration spell onto it to hold two Concentration spells at once, or automatically succeed on one Concentration check per round. I got a really happy player, a balance item adjusted somewhat for my liking, and a good reward for clearing the dungeon, all at once.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-14, 10:23 AM
@Quertus: in order to have time to reply to some other post, I'm limiting my reply to just few points:


That doesn't match my experience. AFB, but IIRC a book, quill & ink run much, much less than a horse.

Per quick online search, normal spellbook costs 50 gold pieces per page. A travel spellbook costs 100 gold pieces per page. Chapter 7 of Dungeon Master's Guide. IIRC, spells take one page per level, so one travel spellbook for four 1st level spells costs 400 gold pieces.

If a character has bookbinding proficiency, they can cut costs by 50% to 75% percent, and it takes two weeks, plus one day for each five pages, to make. Player's options: Spells & Magic.

A horse, on the other hand, costs between 75 and 1000 gold pieces, depending on how good of a horse it is. Donkeys and mules are cheaper.

Conclusion: if you've been getting redundant copies without significant time and financial costs, you have not actually played under the rules on which my arguments are build on.

Like, you can argue for cheaper paper books - the basic rules assume vellum or parchment. But under the basic rules, books are expensive. You only get one book for free at character creation.


Suppose Evard wants Bigby's spells. Is it easier to get them from Bigby, or from Bigby's camp while Bigby is out? Which location encourages Evard to come (or send his agents) more? IMO, "back at camp" is the juicier target.

You are skipping steps. Let's quickly go over basic requirement of a safe camp: ​easy for you to reach, hard to reach for enemies

Basic form of that is not having location of your camp be common knowledge. So if Bigby is doing their job right, Evard does not know where their camp is, forcing Evard to go through Bigby or Bigby's associates.

Another basic form is limiting access. One of the better ways Bigby can do this is by using his unique spells, the very same ones a potential enemy might want, as keys. So now even if Evard knows where the camp is, they have to go through Bigby.

All the while, there's the question of what Bigby himself is doing. If he's say, going through a dungeon where he might have to wade through water, have fireballs or flaming oil thrown at him, have to crawl through mud-filled tunnels, get in a fight etc., he has a lot of very good reasons to not have a cumbersome and fragile object such as book on his person. On the plus side, for Evard, that is, if Bigby exhausts himself in those activities, ambushing Bigby when he's returning to camp is one of the likeliest occasions Evard can best him. Provided, of course, that Evard knows where Bigby is. Before even asking your questions, nevermind figuring out the answers, Evard has to win a round of spy versus spy. If Bigby wins, it doesn't matter which Evard thinks is the juicier target, because Evard doesn't get to choose. The actual odds of either winning the information game depend on exact character traits, so cannot be calculated in the abstract.


Again, more likely that it *won't* impact you, personally and directly, than that it will. After all, whoever has your spellbook already has your spellbook - why should they care about you any more?

They can use the information to counter and kill you so that you won't take revenge; they can sell information on what spells you have to your enemies; they very likely are your enemies because you are trying to kill or steal from them; so on and so forth. Like, replacing "spellbook" with "recipe for explosives" should make many of these answer self-evident. Then there's, you know, the possibility of them using your spells against other people you care about. YOU have that many reasons to care about THEM.

Game master: "The terrorists stole your blueprints for a nuclear weapon while you were away."
Quertus: "Cool, that means they won't try to kill me anymore!"
Game master: " . . . "


Um… now, I know I'm senile, and get things confused, but…

In 2e, is it not the case that
Speak with Dead is a Cleric 2 spell;
by default (ie, outside things like specialty priests from Faiths and Avatars), Clerics get access to "all the spells"?

Unless I'm really confused, it's pretty dang trivial.

It's Cleric 3. Accessible to clerics above X level, limited number per day, reliant on preparation, is not "universal access". I forget if it's 5th or 6th character level, either way, at the start players don't have access, then for several level after there's significant opportunity cost to preparing Speak with Dead instead of something that helps you from becoming dead. Speak with Dead not prepared? Oh gosh, time to retreat to camp to rest and recover spells... really hope no-one attacks when we're doing that....


We may have to disagree on how "obvious" [using teleport, word of recall, etc. to return to safety] was. You saw it, I saw it, but most people I played with? Not so much.

"The word of recall spell takes the priest instantly back to his sanctuary when the word is uttered."

That's how the spell description of word of recall begins, for example. Tell me with a straight face it's not obvious. Your anecdotal experience matters not, when easily acquirable evidence shows this was common enough to become an established trope across gaming mediums.

To draw this to some kind of a close: those "most people" and "most modules" you played with? Yeah, they didn't observe the basic rules of the game any better than Ed Greenwood's modules. If my observations and conclusions look alien, it's because in reality we were playing different games.

Quertus
2021-12-14, 12:14 PM
Heck, getting XP for a magic item was a whole 'nother good idea, though its application was uneven from table to table.:

The XP values in the 2e dmg were for creating items, not for just finding them. I'm not sure 2e gave XP for treasure (except to Thieves, as an optional rule).


Regarding the cost of spellbooks, I think in the 2E DMG they had rules about how much spellbooks cost and how many pages each spell took up in the spellbook and such. If I recall correctly, it was something outrageous like 2000 go for a 100 page spellbook, and 5000 gp for a smaller, lighter, 50 page spellbook, something really ridiculous. Maybe if it made spellbooks harder to destroy than regular books, but I don't reme,ber anything along those lines.

Huh. My senile memory could be wrong about the pricing details, I suppose. :smallredface:

If your memory is correct, that puts it well above the couple hundred gold cost of a good horse, but within the price range of a wagon plus multiple horses to pull it.And well within the range of what you could afford if you haggle with the quest-giver.

But what else is a 2e Wizard gonna spend their share of the loot (which, mind you, probably includes "all the cash and valuables", as the random tables have very little in the way of magical items of use to Wizards) on, besides spell books? A tower? (How much did that run?) Golems generally didn't come online until level 16-18, you usually paid for powerful spells with years of your life, not expensive components, and "gathering components (for items)" was a series of adventurers, not a trip to the market. There really wasn't much else/better for Wizards to do with their cash.

Perhaps at some point I'll make it back to my books…

Vahnavoi
2021-12-14, 12:20 PM
Obviously YMMV, and this is influenced by the games I was personally in or heard about, but the idea of "paranoia = leave your spellbook somewhere you can't see it" seems bizarre to me.

Pretty much the comment I made to Quertus. :smallwink:


I used to be a paranoid player, and rule #1 of that paranoia was:
Don't trust in anything but yourself, and possibly the other party members.

Keeps got invaded when you weren't around. Followers died if you sent them to do anything dangerous, which "guard our stuff in a hostile area" certainly qualified as. Travel plans changed unexpectedly, sometimes with no chance to return to any given place. NPC allies might turn on you. Social titles could be taken away as easily as they were given. Anywhere you put your stuff left it in danger of being stolen, but at least if it was on your person then you had a chance to prevent it (or could reasonably call BS). Buried nearby? Stored in a keep? Kept in a secure vault? All just different routes that could lead to "while you were away, someone took/destroyed your stuff ..."

Now I'm not endorsing this attitude, it's assuming an adversarial relationship which isn't usually the case and pretty much never should be. But that's what I think of when I think paranoia. Leaving your spellbook off in the distance is practically handing the GM an invitation - "feel free to steal it as a plot hook".

The insanity in being paranoid is not in considering all those bad things, because they can and do happen - in AD&D, even the walls, floor and furniture occasionally come to life and try to eat you.

The insanity is thinking your possessions will be safer with you when you are diving head first into decidedly unsafe activities, like crawling through a dungeon or engaging in mortal combat.

The actual, basic rules of AD&D give a character a lot of ways to store their vulnerable items off their person in a way that significantly improves their chance of remaining intact. The idea that you can only prevent bad things happening to them when they're on you is false.

Being paranoid about game master intentions doesn't actually matter - the game master has final say over game events, if they want your items to be gone, they will be gone regardless of where they are. Character actions don't overrule game master arbitration.

---


The more I read the discussion about spellbooks, the more I'm convinced it hugely depends on GMing style (which itself heavily depends on the other peoples the GM has played with in his past).

Of course it depends on how the game master runs their game - that's true of nearly everything in every game with a game master. The actual point to discussing it at all is to highlight how (sometimes minor) differences in rule interpretation and rule emphasis shift how the game is played. That's interesting even if you never use AD&D rules, because you can take the ideas behind them and implement them in another game, like modern D&D.


Sure, the enemy could get stronger by stealing your spellbook, but by how much? Could it have reached the same strength by other means? There is some good chances that had the stealing not happen, the enemies would have found other ways to get stronger (like stealing from a NPC), even if not as strong.

Sure, having a good spellbook might attract robbers, but by how much? Is there really that many fools in the world ready to risk their life against a Wizard known to have that high of a body count?

Reminder: you can pose the same questions of the player characters, because looting and stealing magic from enemies is the basic way of gaining more magic. The player magic-users work with and often are thieves themselves, what you're describing is simply risk assessment of a dungeon crawl or facing an enemy magic-user in reverse.

That also gives us the answer to that last question: yes. Yes there are that many fools. Chances are you are playing some of them.


Also, will the GM actually sacrifice fun of the table, or will he just be satisfied in putting some somewhat regular encounters to keep the theme of "peoples want your stuff" but without pushing it to the point where the players are actually bored out of having similar encounters?

"Will the GM actually sacrifice the fun of the table, or will he just be satisfied in putting somewhat regular encounters to keep the theme of "people trying to kill you" but without pushing it to the point where players are actually bored of having similar encounters?"

Actual game master advice in the books notes that the game difficulty curve should be kept at a level where players are sufficiently provoked to keep trying, without growing too content or giving up in frustration. Yes, some game masters miss the mark. But anyone paying attention at least has an idea that it's there. Boring implementation has never been the ideal.

---



If you're talking about the party's enemies, I don't think spellbook theft is happening to increase their power so much as to decrease the player's. It's not bad tactics so much as it is a shift in the social contract that can be unreasonably effective because people assumed they didn't need to take precautions.

Spellbook theft can do either. That's not the point. The actual point about tactics is that you can decrease chance of your spellbook being stolen or destroyed by storing it away from your person.

The point about social contracts is misplaced. AD&D is very clear that items can both be stolen and destroyed. The rules of the game, as interpreted by a game master, constitute the actual social contract you place yourself under when you sit down to play. You simply failing to play a game well does not mean the social contract has shifted. Like, if you always choose rock in rock-paper-scissors, that will make paper disproportionately effective compared to scissors and rock. That doesn't prove a shift in social contract, it proves you are bad in the game.


It's relatively easy to have backups against spellbook theft, but since that makes "your spellbook was stolen" uninteresting, most DMs won't steal the spellbook, meaning most players won't take the precaution, meaning that DMs who do are effectively metagaming against their players.

Complaining about game master metagaming when your own argument consists solely of metagame thinking is pretty balsy. :smalltongue:

By the actual rules, there's an on-going arms race between security and thieves: as character gain levels in the game, they gain new tools to breach defenses of their enemies, and vice versa. Occasionally having to watch over your own stuff and ward off enemies is just the logical flipside of going to their homes to kill them and steal their stuff. A game master having the non-player characters engage in some tit-for-tat does not require metagaming at all.

The idea that core part of the game is bad and uninteresting when it's done to you is equivalent to the idea that character death in combat is bad and uninteresting. Yes, some D&D do think like that - guess how much I appreciate that idea.


Once again, WBL delenda est. Enemies having non-item bonuses (or things like the Drow's disintegrating equipment in earlier editions) is crappy. The solution is to have a system where you cannot turn yourself into a demigod by lighting a large enough pile of gold on fire, or turn a hoard of +1 swords into a +10 sword. Then enemies can have regular equipment, and PCs can simply not use that equipment, or maybe get a marginal upgrade like turning a Lightning Axe into a Fire Spear because a Fire Spear works better for their character.

A system where enemies don't drop usable equipment IS a system where you cannot turn yourself into demigod by hoarding their equipment. A system where your possessions can be destroyed or stolen also actively works against becoming excessively powerful by hoarding wealth. Even enemies dropping piles of mundane equipment only makes sense when you occasionally need to replace your mundane equipment - they're not worth keeping track of if they have no use.

Versions of the system where items, money etc. go up up up and never down, exists because players who hate losing complained about, well, losing. Pandering to loss aversion and human hoarding instinct is how you get the problem you're trying to solve.

dafrca
2021-12-14, 12:55 PM
A system where enemies don't drop usable equipment IS a system where you cannot turn yourself into demigod by hoarding their equipment. A system where your possessions can be destroyed or stolen also actively works against becoming excessively powerful by hoarding wealth.

I have to say I agree with this thought 100%. Regardless of the BTB/RAW etcetera if the GM gives a lot, they can't be shocked the characters have a lot. :smallbiggrin:

Talakeal
2021-12-14, 02:26 PM
What does ABP stand for?

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-14, 02:38 PM
What does ABP stand for?

Automatic Bonus Progression, I think. Basically getting the raw numbers the system expects at level up instead of from gear.

icefractal
2021-12-14, 03:01 PM
Another basic form is limiting access. One of the better ways Bigby can do this is by using his unique spells, the very same ones a potential enemy might want, as keys. So now even if Evard knows where the camp is, they have to go through Bigby.
I thought we were talking about temporary camps, not strongly-warded fortresses which require a specific spell combination to enter. Yes, if you have a powerful and mobile fortress, that's a great place to store your spellbook. Most campaigns I've been in, that wasn't the case. In the few that it was, being powerful enough to have such a fortress also meant our characters were powerful enough to have secure storage methods on our person, like a portable hole stored inside an adamantine scrollcase.

The other thing that's puzzling me is - why the worry about having your book after you die? If your allies are unable to retrieve your body, you're probably not getting raised. And at the high level where you have allies able to throw True Resurrection at the problem, being sent to another plane by a trap or foe is a definite possibility. It's possible you could be killed while separated from the party, and the killer does loot your stuff but doesn't destroy or hide your body, which the party then finds later, but that seems like an edge case.

Telok
2021-12-14, 03:53 PM
The other thing that's puzzling me is - why the worry about having your book after you die?.

In the older d&ds you needed to cast read magic to decipher a spell scroll (but not a protection scroll) or another wizards spellbook. When you died all your memorized spells were lost. So if the wiz died, got raised, & the spellbook was lost then barring a few magic items like wands or staves that could cast read magic... tough luck?

3e solved that with a 50% spell loss on death & rez and a skill check to decipher. 4e ignored it since the spellbook was a class feature instead of equipment. 5e lets you keep all spells on death & rez and lets the DM make up everything else (as far as I know, haven't DMed it so haven't studied the 5e DMG).

Edit: in before somrone flups out.
You only had to cast read magic the first time you wanted to check out a scroll or other wizards spellbook, not every time.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-14, 04:05 PM
In the older d&ds you needed to cast read magic to decipher a spell scroll (but not a protection scroll) or another wizards spellbook. When you died all your memorized spells were lost. So if the wiz died, got raised, & the spellbook was lost then barring a few magic items like wands or staves that could cast read magic... tough luck?

3e solved that with a 50% spell loss on death & rez and a skill check to decipher. 4e ignored it since the spellbook was a class feature instead of equipment. 5e lets you keep all spells on death & rez and lets the DM make up everything else (as far as I know, haven't DMed it so haven't studied the 5e DMG).

5e has a few differences--

Prepared (we don't say memorized any more) spells aren't lost when cast. Or when you die. This means that a spellbook is only needed to change which spells are prepared or to cast ritual spells that you don't have prepared.

There is no prerequisite spell/check/anything to decipher another wizard's spellbook, just time and money. Scrolls do have a check (the failure of which causes the scroll to go away) to scribe into a spell book. Casting from a scroll only requires a check if the spell is higher level than the highest level of spells you can prepare as a member of <class>[1]

[1] this is different from the highest level of spell slots in the case of multiclassing, where spell slots combine, but spell preparation/learning is class-by-class. A Wizard 4/Cleric 16 has a 9th level slot, but can only prepare 8th (and lower) level cleric spells and can only scribe/prepare 2nd level (and lower) wizard spells. A sorcerer 10/paladin 10 has the spell slots of a 15th level sorcerer, but can only learn 5th level sorcerer spells and prepare 3rd level paladin spells. Of course the weird one is Warlock: a warlock 4/sorcerer 16 has the spell slots of a 16th level sorcerer AND the pact magic slots of a 4th level warlock (the difference being that the pact magic slots are all 2nd level and recharge on a short rest) and can learn spells as a 4th level warlock or 16th level sorcerer.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-14, 05:16 PM
I thought we were talking about temporary camps, not strongly-warded fortresses which require a specific spell combination to enter.

You can do versions of this much earlier with temporary camps. Wizard lock specifically exist for this kind of tasks, spells allowing for new types of movement are also useful. Obviously, which spells fit the bill depends on opposition. As stated before, at low levels you don't have enough spells to obsolete mundane security, you're still be using camp guards, normal locks and keys, camouflage, knowledge of terrain and not telling everyone and their mother where you're camping.


The other thing that's puzzling me is - why the worry about having your book after you die? If your allies are unable to retrieve your body, you're probably not getting raised. And at the high level where you have allies able to throw True Resurrection at the problem, being sent to another plane by a trap or foe is a definite possibility. It's possible you could be killed while separated from the party, and the killer does loot your stuff but doesn't destroy or hide your body, which the party then finds later, but that seems like an edge case.

Already explained. If you have henchmen and retainers, those are the obvious next-in-line player character choices. Quertus called this "metagaming", which is silly: not only is this one historical intended use for such side character, from an in-character viewpoint, they are your apprentices, allies, second-in-commands, family etc. - the logical in-character inheritors of your possessions in case you die. It should be obvious why you'd want your possessions in hands of people you already trust, rather than in hands of enemies or looted by random people. I seriously find the lack of thinking past your own death to be appalling, given my own players have done things like have their characters commit suicide to keep secrets or destroy dangerous magic items at the cost of their own lives to prevent them from becoming a danger to the wider world. Even when the campaign ends for you when your primary character dies, there can still be reasons to care.

The actually harmful type of metagaming is not doing any of that because you're paranoid of your game master never allowing it to matter.

icefractal
2021-12-14, 06:50 PM
Already explained. If you have henchmen and retainers, those are the obvious next-in-line player character choices.
Ah, that may be the difference. When we had those, they were usually significantly lower level than the PCs, and also "set" - meaning that they already have class/level assigned, so unless your retainer was already a Wizard they're not going to morph into one. New PCs were usually just new characters who we met as soon as plausible.



I seriously find the lack of thinking past your own death to be appalling, given my own players have done things like have their characters commit suicide to keep secrets or destroy dangerous magic items at the cost of their own lives to prevent them from becoming a danger to the wider world. Even when the campaign ends for you when your primary character dies, there can still be reasons to care.Well sure, but the times when I've been playing a Wizard who had a custom researched spell so much more dangerous than others of its level that it'd be really bad if an antagonist got it? Never happened.

If you've got standard spells, and an antagonist learns them ... they might be a bit tougher. Usually enemy Wizards already have decent spells (because if they didn't have anything suitable for combat, they're probably not going out there and fighting us), so while the added versatility might make them a little more powerful it's not a big deal. And besides custom spells being expensive to research, they're not inherently more powerful than other spells of the level, just more suited to your specific character. So for an enemy caster with different goals, they may even be a downgrade.

Quertus
2021-12-14, 07:01 PM
To draw this to some kind of a close: those "most people" and "most modules" you played with? Yeah, they didn't observe the basic rules of the game any better than Ed Greenwood's modules. If my observations and conclusions look alien, it's because in reality we were playing different games.

Ah, pity you didn't lead with this / that i didn't read it before replying to rest. :smalltongue:

So… "didn't observe the basic rules of the game any better than Ed Greenwood's modules"… do you no longer think my rant was quite as misdirected as you initially did?

Yes, I seem to have misremembered just how much spellbooks cost. But above average murderhobos¹ could have afforded several copies just from the *start* of the module, and the NPCs are all "better than you", and presumably could afford many, many more.

The other stuff, if anyone cares (I've certainly enjoyed hearing a perspective & experiences very different from my own):


You are skipping steps. Let's quickly go over basic requirement of a safe camp: ​easy for you to reach, hard to reach for enemies

Basic form of that is not having location of your camp be common knowledge. So if Bigby is doing their job right, Evard does not know where their camp is, forcing Evard to go through Bigby or Bigby's associates.

Another basic form is limiting access. One of the better ways Bigby can do this is by using his unique spells, the very same ones a potential enemy might want, as keys. So now even if Evard knows where the camp is, they have to go through Bigby.

All the while, there's the question of what Bigby himself is doing. If he's say, going through a dungeon where he might have to wade through water, have fireballs or flaming oil thrown at him, have to crawl through mud-filled tunnels, get in a fight etc., he has a lot of very good reasons to not have a cumbersome and fragile object such as book on his person. On the plus side, for Evard, that is, if Bigby exhausts himself in those activities, ambushing Bigby when he's returning to camp is one of the likeliest occasions Evard can best him. Provided, of course, that Evard knows where Bigby is. Before even asking your questions, nevermind figuring out the answers, Evard has to win a round of spy versus spy. If Bigby wins, it doesn't matter which Evard thinks is the juicier target, because Evard doesn't get to choose. The actual odds of either winning the information game depend on exact character traits, so cannot be calculated in the abstract.

Yeah, I'm struggling to reconcile "find a defensible position, start a fire, set up watches, maybe an Alarm spell. If you're gonna be there a while, and are really paranoid, set up spikes like in Conan, or start changing the terrain" with "create an extradimensional space accessable only via Bigby's Knocking Fist". And wondering just what level party is required for the latter.


They can use the information to counter and kill you so that you won't take revenge;

This assumes that they're sloppy enough that the target knows who stole from them.


they can sell information on what spells you have to your enemies

Dude, if they knew that there was a market for that, most of my parties would have cashed in! "Here's what spells Bob has in travel spellbook 4c. Huh? No, I'm his evil twin, uh, Rob…". The information of what is in a particular travel spellbook is often disinformation regarding the party's capabilities and disposition.


; they very likely are your enemies because you are trying to kill or steal from them

Nah, much better to kill enemies, and steal from Allies / neutral Wizards, IME. Especially when you can frame someone else.


; so on and so forth. Like, replacing "spellbook" with "recipe for explosives" should make many of these answer self-evident. Then there's, you know, the possibility of them using your spells against other people you care about. YOU have that many reasons to care about THEM.

Game master: "The terrorists stole your blueprints for a nuclear weapon while you were away."
Quertus: "Cool, that means they won't try to kill me anymore!"
Game master: " . . . "

It's an issue of scale. If Holland stole the secret of the grenade, does the holder of the panzer really care? Especially if Holland knows that, if they use those grenades against their allies, those panzers aren't going to be happy.

Wizards with their d4 HP who have an attitude of, "I've got an incomplete picture of your capabilities, so I'm gonna make you mad" don't tend to live very long.

At least as importantly, that Wizard with grenades is so much less of "a threat to the things I hold dear" than the Dragons, beholders, Fighters, and deities I'm already killing.


It's Cleric 3. Accessible to clerics above X level, limited number per day, reliant on preparation, is not "universal access". I forget if it's 5th or 6th character level, either way, at the start players don't have access, then for several level after there's significant opportunity cost to preparing Speak with Dead instead of something that helps you from becoming dead. Speak with Dead not prepared? Oh gosh, time to retreat to camp to rest and recover spells... really hope no-one attacks when we're doing that....

Huh. Still, if, by the time I'm murdering Bigby, the party Cleric(s) can't cast Speak with Dead on Bigby's severed head tomorrow (immediately today if we *planned* to kill Bigby), they're fired!

Also, having this essential looting spell, Speak with Dead, on scroll seems much more valuable and much more reasonable than the 160 spells on scroll that the Wave Witch carries as a way to not carry her spellbook. Just saying.


"The word of recall spell takes the priest instantly back to his sanctuary when the word is uttered."

That's how the spell description of word of recall begins, for example. Tell me with a straight face it's not obvious. Your anecdotal experience matters not, when easily acquirable evidence shows this was common enough to become an established trope across gaming mediums.

Sure? Except… it wasn't used for 15mwd, just as an emergency escape button, like Contingency. And that's not totally "buffoon" territory, given that it doesn't provide a way back, and given how Teleport mishaps were a thing.

Everybody just, you know, actually walked around, and stayed in the adventure area until they walked to the next site, reserving spells like that for emergency / "we failed" scenarios.

Citation on other people actually acting more like me in 2e?

¹ <spoilers>, and killing the friendly crew & selling their ship, even before selling the "normal" loot.

RandomPeasant
2021-12-14, 07:32 PM
Complaining about game master metagaming when your own argument consists solely of metagame thinking is pretty balsy. :smalltongue:

"A private arms race between the Wizard's player and the DM isn't fun for the rest of the table" isn't really "metagame thinking".


The idea that core part of the game is bad and uninteresting when it's done to you is equivalent to the idea that character death in combat is bad and uninteresting. Yes, some D&D do think like that - guess how much I appreciate that idea.

I would argue that character death in combat is in fact uninteresting. Not getting to interact with the game makes the game substantially less interesting for you. You can make good arguments about the value of balancing the need to maintain tension with the desire to keep characters engaged, but I would be entirely comfortable saying that a system that outputs "your character is dead, go sit in the corner while the rest of the group finishes this fight" is bad, especially if fights take as long as they typically do in D&D.

More generally, I reject your premise that players should accept having the script flipped on them for any aspect of the game. Players spend a lot of time buying stuff from stores or accepting quests from local rulers. While I'm certainly not opposed to the system having "run a shop" or "dispatch underlings on quests" minigames, it seems entirely reasonable to me for someone who signed up to play a dungeon crawler to want to avoid taking on the roles of shopkeep or quest giver.


A system where enemies don't drop usable equipment IS a system where you cannot turn yourself into demigod by hoarding their equipment.

Not as it's being presented. Adding the "enemies have inherent bonuses" epicycle doesn't fix the problem where a pile of gold breaks the game, it just makes it harder to get a pile of gold. If all you want to do is fight monsters, and your players are willing to accept it, that might work, but WBL still breaks when you ask questions like "what if I run a business in the downtime between adventures" or "what if I chip out the walls of the Githyanki warlord's diamond castle and sell them".


A system where your possessions can be destroyed or stolen also actively works against becoming excessively powerful by hoarding wealth.

No it doesn't. The incentives still point in the same direction. It may be harder to do, but if you can get real ultimate power out of a big pile of gold, people are still going to behave as if big piles of gold are a path to real ultimate power. Because they are.


Versions of the system where items, money etc. go up up up and never down, exists because players who hate losing complained about, well, losing. Pandering to loss aversion and human hoarding instinct is how you get the problem you're trying to solve.

Why is it better for the number to go up to a problematic level, then go down, rather than just not going up to that level?

LibraryOgre
2021-12-14, 08:22 PM
In the older d&ds you needed to cast read magic to decipher a spell scroll (but not a protection scroll) or another wizards spellbook. When you died all your memorized spells were lost. So if the wiz died, got raised, & the spellbook was lost then barring a few magic items like wands or staves that could cast read magic... tough luck?


You know, I went around on this in another board, but 2e did not require Read Magic to read a spellbook. In fact, the bard class specifically said you did not ("The bard is not guaranteed to know read magic, as this is not needed to read the writings in a spell book.") I know it was really common to think you did, to the point where some folks are honestly surprised by it, but it's not necessary.

As for paranoia about spellbooks, we HEAVILY gamed the item saving throw rules as our DM used them. His rule (doesn't seem to be in the DMG, but might have another source) was that you failed saves in layers... so, if you failed your save against a fireball, then your clothes, armor, and backpack needed to save. If THOSE failed, then anything inside them needed to save. And then anything inside them. And so on.

So our spellbooks, once we got the money, went into spellbook cases. They usually had a leather exterior (dragonhide, if you could get it), then a metal case, then wrapped in waxed leather. Each of these was a separate opportunity for a trap or a glyph or something, but it meant that, in order to affect the spellbook, you had to get through the leather, the metal, and the waxed paper (there for waterproofing).

We were too mobile for the 1e idea of a regular v. travelling spellbook to make a lot of sense for us, but we took care of those books.

Quertus
2021-12-14, 08:31 PM
from an in-character viewpoint, they are your apprentices, allies, second-in-commands, family etc.

I seriously find the lack of thinking past your own death to be appalling

As do I. When team BBEG kills your character, casts Speak with Dead, finds that you left your spellbooks with your Mom, your best friend, and your spouce, and kills them, too, to get your books? That seems short-sighted.

Telok
2021-12-14, 09:55 PM
You know, I went around on this in another board, but 2e did not require Read Magic to read a spellbook. In fact, the bard class specifically said you did not ("The bard is not guaranteed to know read magic, as this is not needed to read the writings in a spell book.") I know it was really common to think you did, to the point where some folks are honestly surprised by it, but it's not necessary

Hmm. Might be a 1e or earlier thing then. Plus a specific callout that... ya know, let me check...

Sorry, won't be able to do any checking until tomorrow sometime. Found some posdibilities though.

Edit: Managed to get some time.

So 1e illusionists & 2e bards have specific call outs that you don't need thr read magic spell to read their spell books (though illusionists have a secret language thingy going on). Then the read magic spell itself says that the wizard does not need it to understand their own personal books. I didn't look but in the PHs & DMGs. While there isn't a rule in black & white that says a wizard needs the read magic spell for other's spell books, there is a strong implication of it. Especially because you'd wonder why the illusionist & bard spell books are called out as exceptional because read magic isn't required if the spell wan't required to read any spell books.

You could look through the adventures and suppliments for more hints, but I think thats about all we'd find.

On an interesting note the 1e read magic spell was reversable & the illegibility was unbreakable. The duration was crap, so probably near useless in actual play, but its an interesting function of the spell.

Cluedrew
2021-12-14, 09:59 PM
"A private arms race between the Wizard's player and the DM isn't fun for the rest of the table" isn't really "metagame thinking".I think they are saying that it is not something in-character (because the characters don't know there is a table) so in that sense it is. It certainly isn't the usual "trying to get an in-character advantage using out-of-character knowledge" though. In fact I would describe making sure people have fun a pretty important consideration that should be encouraged.

Glorthindel
2021-12-15, 06:00 AM
"A private arms race between the Wizard's player and the DM isn't fun for the rest of the table" isn't really "metagame thinking".

I don't think calls to what's fun and what isn't is ever going to go anywhere, as most people have such radically different opinions of what's fun, no one can really make an agregate call on what is fun for the most people. Add to the fact, that often, the "not fun" call is made by people who haven't actually experienced the playstyle that they are calling out, they just think it wouldn't be fun because they haven't ever had to do that before, and because it sounds like busywork, its "obviously" unfun to their ears.

I here this call all the time about aspects of the game that have fell by the wayside, that actually, I really enjoyed, and love when a game requires paying attension to those details. Spell components? Absolutely great; I once ran a wizard character whose main hobby was the hunt for rare and unusual spell components, and would rub his hands with glee and fish out his collection of small knives whenever a new and weird creature fell in front of the party. Dungeon mapping? One of my favourite roles (granted, i am an Architect, so maybe its a professional interest).

And spellbook protection and insurance falls into one of those categories. Yes, I require player Wizards to protect their spellbooks, and will pull no punches if they are lazy or rely on luck to spare their spells from loss to that fall in the river, or getting caught in a Dragon's breath. But in the same respect (and what I think was Quertus's original complaint), I make sure I know where every NPC Wizard in my campaigns has hidden his spellbook (and make sure I know how said wizard gets his hands on them when he needs them). Some of them will be lazy or overconfident in their own ability to protect them, some will rely on one good defence, or multiple layered precautions, some will be crafty, and some will be excessively paranoid to the point of insanity, but those books will exist in my game world somewhere for my players to plunder if they are smart, determined, or lucky enough to locate them.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-15, 09:21 AM
Ah, that may be the difference. When we had those, they were usually significantly lower level than the PCs, and also "set" - meaning that they already have class/level assigned, so unless your retainer was already a Wizard they're not going to morph into one. New PCs were usually just new characters who we met as soon as plausible.

Henchmen get their share of treasure and experience points, the reason they have to be lower level than you is that if they get to or above your level, they leave to form a group of their own. But you can maintain a henchman at just one level difference if you play well.

Finding the right kind of henchmen may be an issue, but it should be obvious why a magic-user wants magic-user apprentices. 1st edition guaranteed those apprentices when you built a tower, but I'm not sure 2nd edition retained that rule.


Well sure, but the times when I've been playing a Wizard who had a custom researched spell so much more dangerous than others of its level that it'd be really bad if an antagonist got it? Never happened.

If you've got standard spells, and an antagonist learns them ... they might be a bit tougher. Usually enemy Wizards already have decent spells (because if they didn't have anything suitable for combat, they're probably not going out there and fighting us), so while the added versatility might make them a little more powerful it's not a big deal. And besides custom spells being expensive to research, they're not inherently more powerful than other spells of the level, just more suited to your specific character. So for an enemy caster with different goals, they may even be a downgrade

My arguments don't apply to just custom spells - under rules where spell knowledge is unevenly distributed, weaponized and dangerous, you have incentive to safeguard ALL spell knowledge. Nevermind that spells even within the same spell level aren't of equal utility - for example "My enemy has Fireball, therefore I don't care if they also get Fly" should be self-evidently bad argument. Or, to use a simpler game to more easily explain another related principle: "rock, paper and scissors are all of same play power, therefore, I don't care if my opponent knows I'm going to pick rock" should also be self-evidently bad argument. Surrendering information advantages is a big enough deal that it serves as loss condition all on its own in many playable scenarios.

I can get ignoring that if you're being paranoid about your game master and think that, since a game master can see your spells, they are already using that information for all possible enemies. But that's not a better strategy, it's just not doing things because you don't believe the game you're playing is fair.

---


Ah, pity you didn't lead with this / that i didn't read it before replying to rest. :smalltongue:

So… "didn't observe the basic rules of the game any better than Ed Greenwood's modules"… do you no longer think my rant was quite as misdirected as you initially did?

Remember, you had a whole list of gripes. I only contested one. I've been in silent agreement over most of the rest of your points regarding the module all this time. Those other flaws just don't support your other arguments in a way you think they do.

For example, the ship burning down automatically if player characters aren't there to protect it? That supports the idea of PCs as primary disaster detergent, but not for any reason related to PC play power. It just a metagame notion rooted in PC exceptionalism, as proven by your own observation that NPCs are numerically powerful enough to do things on their own, yet still expect PCs to do everything.

Or, to tie this to the point about paranoia between me and icefractal: the insanity doesn't begin with the notion that sometimes, a ship burns down when you aren't present. That can happen, and sometimes happens even if you do your best to prevent it. The insanity begins with the notion that the ship ALWAYS burns down when you aren't present. Under basic rules of the game, that's false. If it's true because, say, you mostly play modules by Ed Greenwood, that's what's warping your game strategy.

---


"A private arms race between the Wizard's player and the DM isn't fun for the rest of the table" isn't really "metagame thinking".

That argument does not rely on any in-character knowledge nor detailed analysis of the game's rules, it relies solely on assumed opinions of people playing. It's metagame thinking through and through.

By the actual rules, all the other playable character types have their own possessions vulnerable to destruction and theft, and thus their own reasons to set up safe camps and supply caches. They benefit from co-operation with the magic-user in base defense just as much as they benefit from co-operation with the magic-user when raiding enemy bases, for largely the same reasons. Everyone is part of the arms race, and playing defense can be made as deep, interesting and "fun" as playing offense.


I would argue that character death in combat is in fact uninteresting. Not getting to interact with the game makes the game substantially less interesting for you. You can make good arguments about the value of balancing the need to maintain tension with the desire to keep characters engaged, but I would be entirely comfortable saying that a system that outputs "your character is dead, go sit in the corner while the rest of the group finishes this fight" is bad, especially if fights take as long as they typically do in D&D.

So why are you playing a game with abundant lethal combat, then?


More generally, I reject your premise that players should accept having the script flipped on them for any aspect of the game. Players spend a lot of time buying stuff from stores or accepting quests from local rulers. While I'm certainly not opposed to the system having "run a shop" or "dispatch underlings on quests" minigames, it seems entirely reasonable to me for someone who signed up to play a dungeon crawler to want to avoid taking on the roles of shopkeep or quest giver.

Those things you call "flipping the script" are in fact part of the script in AD&D. You will spend time acting as a merchant, selling loot and treasure you've acquired, you will eventually have henchmen and hirelings you will send on quests, so on and so forth. The game isn't limited to dungeon crawling. Sitting down to play should mean you accept that.


Not as it's being presented. Adding the "enemies have inherent bonuses" epicycle doesn't fix the problem where a pile of gold breaks the game, it just makes it harder to get a pile of gold. If all you want to do is fight monsters, and your players are willing to accept it, that might work, but WBL still breaks when you ask questions like "what if I run a business in the downtime between adventures" or "what if I chip out the walls of the Githyanki warlord's diamond castle and sell them".

It's the commonest of common sense that the harder achieving a game-breaking pile of gold is, the harder the game is to break along that vector. It's always at least a partial solution. ​Those supposed "WBL breaking" questions actually have fairly straightforward answers even in 3rd edition. For mundane businesses, you're simply calculating profession, craft and perform checks, for amounts of money that pale in comparison to what can be looted from a dungeon. For diamond wall castles and other such absurdities, a sane game master doesn't put those in their game before the reward acquirable from selling the absurd thing fits within the guideline - literally why wealth per level guidelines exist. It's a self-created problem.


Why is it better for the number to go up to a problematic level, then go down, rather than just not going up to that level?

Loaded question. In a dynamic system, the causes acting to bring a number down in response to it going up, are what stabilize that number and prevent it from going too high. This is called a negative feedback loop. Setting these up is basic to running any resource management scenario.

The reason numbers in modern D&D can go up to stupid levels is because character progression is based on a positive feedback loop - power gets you wealth, wealth gets you power, around it goes - and the negative elements have been downplayed, neglected and underdeveloped due to aforementioned pandering.

You can replace the dynamic elements with a static cap. There's just less game that way.

---


As do I. When team BBEG kills your character, casts Speak with Dead, finds that you left your spellbooks with your Mom, your best friend, and your spouce, and kills them, too, to get your books? That seems short-sighted.

In the context you're replying to, your family are your henchmen, meaning they likely are already involved in the conflict, are next-in-line to fight team BBEG for whatever reason you were fighting them, plus the additional personal reason of now avenging you.

Bigby's skull: "Please Evard, don't kill my wife and kids! They know nothing!"

Evard: "Your wife and kids are my most hated enemies after you, have been actively supporting you and been a thorn in my side for weeks. I was going to kill them anyway."

Bigby's skull: ". . . "

Evard: "But hey, thanks for making it easy for me. Would've been inconvenient if they also had your spells. Have a nice time rotting in Hell, dumbass."

Bigby's wife: "Yeah. After all the effort to teach me magic almost on par with you, you didn't think to give me that damn book even after you're dead? Why did I ever marry you, you selfish prick?

Quertus
2021-12-15, 02:15 PM
The insanity begins with the notion that the ship ALWAYS burns down when you aren't present.

Lol. So, I fully agreed with and grok'd this part. Turns out, *here's* where our disconnect was:



Bigby's wife: "Yeah. After all the effort to teach me magic almost on par with you, you didn't think to give me that damn book even after you're dead?

The concept of the 20th level Wizard having a 19th level hench(wo)man Sorceress wife was lost on me (as might have been obvious from the "Selune & jesters" example).

EDIT: only relevant rule I half know involves the starting level of new PCs always being 1st, *unless* you've advanced a PC far enough before they die (or retire), in which case it maybe raises to 3rd level. And, again, not that it applies to NPCs, but is this "henchmen as pool of potential 'next PC' choices" even a rule in 2e?


If it's true because, say, you mostly play modules by Ed Greenwood, that's what's warping your game strategy.

Still not convinced the strategy is particularly warped, and I *think* that Halls of the High King is the only module by Ed I've encountered (heh), but that reasoning is why I expect that Ed's table is made of warpstone. :smallwink:

icefractal
2021-12-15, 02:16 PM
While you could have your spouse and kids as henchmen, I don't think I've ever seen that be the case. The type of places adventurers often go, I wouldn't want to bring my kids. And it's not like Wizards only marry other Wizards, you know?

Like, I'm not denying that if you have a designated successor in a location significantly more secure than the one you're going, and close enough to access regularly, it'd make sense to leave your book with them. I'm just saying that situation was not remotely the norm IME.

As far as enemy mages, while I think actually simulating their process of acquiring spells could be cool, it's also a lot of work and AFAIK I've never played with a GM who did it. If it's beneficial for the enemy mage to know both Fly and Fireball, and they're high enough level for it, they'll have both those spells already. In terms of mages in modules, the usual way I've seen is that they have whatever prepared spell loadout is appropriate to their usual tactics, and then their spellbook is that plus a few other spells of similar theme. And all this only even matters if they're a recurring nemesis, ofc.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-15, 06:12 PM
The insanity in being paranoid is not in considering all those bad things, because they can and do happen - in AD&D, even the walls, floor and furniture occasionally come to life and try to eat you. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. :smallbiggrin:

That also gives us the answer to that last question: yes. Yes there are that many fools. Chances are you are playing some of them. We had a classic case of this a few weeks ago in Phoenix's game and it was awesome.
Each of our players has been chasing various quests and personal arcs/motivations, some of which involve warlock deities or patrons or deep deity like powers, and defying an ancient black dragon who wanted to displace a Great Wyrm as the Grim Reaper equivalent in the game world.

We end up in a scenario where the avatar of a deity shows up, one we've know/learned was up to no good in our Paladin's home country, and we challenge him and its Fight On! We emerge victorious, and the consequences of that avatar being done in is that, for a while, that deity abruptly fades out of the picture (he's one of four in a particular pantheon). We watch one of his clerics go into convulsions as his connection to the deity is severed.
We then end up learning that each of the other three deities had a beef with the one we just confronted, and we discover that since about level seven (we are at 18 at this point) our various adventures have bit by bit led to positioning that fourth into a position where he had to confront us - he was, in the cosmic sense, a cornered rat.
We had foreshadowing and all of that (our paladin being told "we know who pulls your strings" and my bard "we know who gave you that voice" etc and much more) which didn't make sense until ... that big reveal.

We were, to a certain extent, the poor saps being used by these three to achieve their grand conspiracy and the fault would be laid at our doorstep.
And it was.

It was freaking awesome.

We all did the old look at each other and went "Well, isn't that special" as we returned to the mortal plane where the impact of what we'd done was beginning to be felt.

Be careful of what you wish for, as you are sure to get it. :smallbiggrin:

Some of the finest DMing I've seen in a while, that was.

RandomPeasant
2021-12-15, 06:38 PM
I think they are saying that it is not something in-character (because the characters don't know there is a table) so in that sense it is. It certainly isn't the usual "trying to get an in-character advantage using out-of-character knowledge" though. In fact I would describe making sure people have fun a pretty important consideration that should be encouraged.

I agree that it is not in-character. That doesn't make it metagaming, because that word has a specific meaning, and that meaning is not "discussions about what people are likely to enjoy". Maybe there's some technical definition by which having a session zero where you talk about behavioral and gameplay assumptions is "metagaming", but that's not the common usage, and I have no particular patience for that sort of semantic argument.


By the actual rules, all the other playable character types have their own possessions vulnerable to destruction and theft, and thus their own reasons to set up safe camps and supply caches.

But it is quite obvious that other characters are not equally dependent on those possessions. A Monk or Druid cares far less about having their stuff stolen than a Fighter or Wizard. As a Druid, the marginal benefit you gain from going over an extra page of camp defenses (or, frankly, any pages of camp defenses) is far less than what you'd gain from simply adventuring.


Those things you call "flipping the script" are in fact part of the script in AD&D. You will spend time acting as a merchant, selling loot and treasure you've acquired, you will eventually have henchmen and hirelings you will send on quests, so on and so forth. The game isn't limited to dungeon crawling. Sitting down to play should mean you accept that.

Games contain lots of things. It is entirely reasonable to have preferences about which of those things you'd like to prioritize. Legacy and Draft are both ways to play Magic: The Gathering. That doesn't mean that someone sitting down to play some Magic must necessarily be indifferent between the two formats.


It's the commonest of common sense that the harder achieving a game-breaking pile of gold is, the harder the game is to break along that vector.

The commonest of common sense is that the best way of preventing a game from breaking on some particular vector is to have a game that doesn't break along that vector. I am sure you can add epicycles enough to stop your group from encountering any particular problem. That is different from, and worse than, simply solving those problems.


For mundane businesses, you're simply calculating profession, craft and perform checks, for amounts of money that pale in comparison to what can be looted from a dungeon.

Per unit time, sure. But you can just timeskip those things. And now you say something about a living world or how the bad guys have plots too, but the point is that we've now cut out an entire category of campaigns (those with abundant downtime) to preserve WBL. The epicycles you are adding are removing things from the game, and WBL provides no measurable benefit in exchange.


For diamond wall castles and other such absurdities, a sane game master doesn't put those in their game before the reward acquirable from selling the absurd thing fits within the guideline - literally why wealth per level guidelines exist. It's a self-created problem.

No, it's a WBL-created problem. If the pile of money you get from looting a diamond castle didn't break the game, you could put diamond castles in the game without worrying about them. It is absolutely miserable to have to do detailed accounting of every part of the scenery of every adventure you have to make sure players don't get too much money. It is equally miserable to have your clever scheme to monetize the necromancer's black onyx mine or the tapestries you looted from the baron's castle because otherwise the game would break. Again, WBL is cutting things out of the game, and we don't really get anything in return.


You can replace the dynamic elements with a static cap. There's just less game that way.

That's backwards. Nothing stops you from robbing the players if that's what you want. But having "the players get robbed" be a core part of game balance removes all the games where the players don't get robbed and also don't gain game-breaking powers. The less assumptions about how the campaign works you need to maintain balance, the wider the variety of supported campaigns is.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-15, 07:24 PM
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. :smallbiggrin:
We had a classic case of this a few weeks ago in Phoenix's game and it was awesome.
Each of our players has been chasing various quests and personal arcs/motivations, some of which involve warlock deities or patrons or deep deity like powers, and defying an ancient black dragon who wanted to displace a Great Wyrm as the Grim Reaper equivalent in the game world.

We end up in a scenario where the avatar of a deity shows up, one we've know/learned was up to no good in our Paladin's home country, and we challenge him and its Fight On! We emerge victorious, and the consequences of that avatar being done in is that, for a while, that deity abruptly fades out of the picture (he's one of four in a particular pantheon). We watch one of his clerics go into convulsions as his connection to the deity is severed.
We then end up learning that each of the other three deities had a beef with the one we just confronted, and we discover that since about level seven (we are at 18 at this point) our various adventures have bit by bit led to positioning that fourth into a position where he had to confront us - he was, in the cosmic sense, a cornered rat.
We had foreshadowing and all of that (our paladin being told "we know who pulls your strings" and my bard "we know who gave you that voice" etc and much more) which didn't make sense until ... that big reveal.

We were, to a certain extent, the poor saps being used by these three to achieve their grand conspiracy and the fault would be laid at our doorstep.
And it was.

It was freaking awesome.

We all did the old look at each other and went "Well, isn't that special" as we returned to the mortal plane where the impact of what we'd done was beginning to be felt.

Be careful of what you wish for, as you are sure to get it. :smallbiggrin:

Some of the finest DMing I've seen in a while, that was.

Funny thing--I thought that the foreshadowing had been pretty darn blatant. Especially with the whole "gods playing chess and <enemy god> flipping over the table" scene. Although I hadn't[1] expected you to actually break the avatar completely. Things went a little sideways to the point that he called for an outright trial by combat instead of accepting that he'd dun wrong; as planned, that fight would have been you stripping away his ability to interact with the mortal world directly, basically acting as the agents of agreed-on punishment via the goddess of justice. Leaving him still a god, but very much in divine time-out for a long while. But that didn't happen quite that way, so "he ded" was the only logical option.

I'm glad it came across well. Yes, the gods are pretty much interfering jerks who like to mess with mortals. Well...most of them anyway. Now one fewer.

[1] I should have. I absolutely should have.

Talakeal
2021-12-16, 11:53 AM
Still not convinced the strategy is particularly warped, and I *think* that Halls of the High King is the only module by Ed I've encountered (heh), but that reasoning is why I expect that Ed's table is made of warpstone. :smallwink:

Is that a thing that can happen? Pardon me, I need to do a furniture inspection.

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-16, 12:21 PM
I am going to go one step farther. The GM should never have to roll a dice, and only adjudicate outcomes based on player level success on their tests.

However, that would require a HUGE change to the structures and conventions to D&D.

That's where my dislike of asymmetric mechanics comes in.

If a to-hit roll is how the PC determines whether they hit the NPC, then the NPC should be making that same roll to determine whether they hit the PC. That's how the attempt of one "person" to hit another "person" is resolved.

And if it's only the players who ever roll, the GM don't have any way to resolve NPC actions other than fiat, if those directions don't actively interact with a PC.

Plus asymmetric mechanics means that when I take the GM seat, I need to, in effect, learn a different set of rules.

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-16, 12:31 PM
I too would like a more clear statement of purpose. I find that in 5e, you can divine the likely intended purpose from the text as well as developer statements, but that isn't crystal clear, nor is it stable. I find that the new material departs from what previously appeared (and was stated) to be the intent in many ways. Which is one reason I'm less and less fond of the new material--I liked the old intent. A lot. The new (presumed) one? Not so much.

Frankly, for some systems, I think it becomes more clear, especially as more material comes out, that the designers did not have a conscious, coherent intent in the sense of "intent" being used here.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-16, 12:35 PM
Frankly, for some systems, I think it becomes more clear, especially as more material comes out, that the designers did not have a conscious, coherent intent in the sense of "intent" being used here.

Yeah. Or if they did, it only lasted for a few books at most. That's my big "beef" (it's hard to call it a beef, it's not even a calf, just a sense of meh) with the way WotC is treating 5e--they seemed to have a clear intent at the beginning. A design philosophy I liked a lot. As time's gone on, it's becoming more and more ignored (if it ever really existed).

Quertus
2021-12-16, 12:39 PM
Is that a thing that can happen? Pardon me, I need to do a furniture inspection.

My febrile self certainly enjoyed the laugh! :smallbiggrin:

But, yeah, I hear it's all the rage for <insert whichever group seems craziest to you, like "politicians" or "newscasters" or "volcano skydiving enthusiasts" or whatever.>


That's where my dislike of asymmetric mechanics comes in.

If a to-hit roll is how the PC determines whether they hit the NPC, then the NPC should be making that same roll to determine whether they hit the PC. That's how the attempt of one "person" to hit another "person" is resolved.

And if it's only the players who ever roll, the GM don't have any way to resolve NPC actions other than fiat, if those directions don't actively interact with a PC.

Plus asymmetric mechanics means that when I take the GM seat, I need to, in effect, learn a different set of rules.

How about, "the players roll their AC against the NPCs attack bonus"? Mechanically (or, well, statistically and fundamentally) the same, but the GM isn't rolling any dice.

Segev
2021-12-16, 01:33 PM
How about, "the players roll their AC against the NPCs attack bonus"? Mechanically (or, well, statistically and fundamentally) the same, but the GM isn't rolling any dice.

Who rolls - the attacker or defender - when a PC attacks another PC? When an NPC attacks another NPC?

Sure, the answer can just be a case-by-case ruling by the DM, but it IS something he now has to determine, because the asymmetry breaks down.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-16, 01:35 PM
The concept of the 20th level Wizard having a 19th level hench(wo)man Sorceress wife was lost on me (as might have been obvious from the "Selune & jesters" example).

EDIT: only relevant rule I half know involves the starting level of new PCs always being 1st, *unless* you've advanced a PC far enough before they die (or retire), in which case it maybe raises to 3rd level. And, again, not that it applies to NPCs, but is this "henchmen as pool of potential 'next PC' choices" even a rule in 2e?

As explained to icefractal earlier in the post you quoted, one level difference is the best you can manage before your henchman leaves you. The overarching point is simply that henchmen can gain levels and thus aren't automatically push-overs. 2nd edition is vague on their starting level, you can assume they follow rules for new player characters, meaning the earliest henchman you can be allowed is 1st level when your character is 2nd level, and if you're lucky, 3rd level when your character is 4th level. (1st edition AD&D had class specific rules for this upon reaching name level, 3rd edition D&D folded the henchmen rules into Leadership feat and rules for cohorts. I'm mentioning the other editions because 1st edition play influences 2nd edition and 2nd edition play influenced 3rd, so you can use those to fork historical usage.)

The rule for henchmen is that the player of the character takes over doing most paperwork for them much like for their player character. Using them as actual back-up player characters is just a convenient follow-up to that, because the player is doing most of the paperwork already. I don't think it was a hard rule, the overarching point is that you're invested in these characters even if you don't get to play them.

---


While you could have your spouse and kids as henchmen, I don't think I've ever seen that be the case. The type of places adventurers often go, I wouldn't want to bring my kids. And it's not like Wizards only marry other Wizards, you know?

Don't get sidetracked by an example. The point being made to Quertus is that in the context he's replying to, the family are henchmen, not that all henchmen are family, nor that all families are henchmen. For the record, I've had my characters marry their henchmen, and my players have done the same, that's why it's not an exotic example to me.

And to be clear, I agree not all magic-user henchmen are themselves magic-users, I'm merely pointing out that when you're a magic-user, it's an obvious goal to aim for.

---


I agree that it is not in-character. That doesn't make it metagaming, because that word has a specific meaning, and that meaning is not "discussions about what people are likely to enjoy". Maybe there's some technical definition by which having a session zero where you talk about behavioral and gameplay assumptions is "metagaming", but that's not the common usage, and I have no particular patience for that sort of semantic argument.

The general meaning of metagaming is using knowledge outside the game to decide game actions. A conversation about what people would enjoy in a game is a metagame discussion, using that information to decide game actions is metagaming, even in the specific roleplaying sense of "a player's use of real-life knowledge concerning the state of the game to determine their character's actions" (Wikipedia); when your character is leaving their possessions unguarded because you think your game master agrees going after them can't be fun, you are metagaming. As far as I'm concerned, your "common usage" argument is in fact wrong.


But it is quite obvious that other characters are not equally dependent on those possessions. A Monk or Druid cares far less about having their stuff stolen than a Fighter or Wizard. As a Druid, the marginal benefit you gain from going over an extra page of camp defenses (or, frankly, any pages of camp defenses) is far less than what you'd gain from simply adventuring.

Do you or do you not need the magic-user's help? Because if you do, then you do care about their possessions as much as you care about yours. If you don't, what are you doing in the same party as them?


Games contain lots of things. It is entirely reasonable to have preferences about which of those things you'd like to prioritize. Legacy and Draft are both ways to play Magic: The Gathering. That doesn't mean that someone sitting down to play some Magic must necessarily be indifferent between the two formats.

If you have a strong preference for Legacy over Draft, and someone's offering you a game of Draft, you don't sit down to play Draft. Similarly, if you have a strong preference for dungeon crawling over everything else, and someone offers you a game of AD&D with all the non-dungeon crawling bits active, you don't sit down to play either. You, instead, go to play a game of Legacy, or go and find a game of D&D that doesn't include the extra content, such as Basic D&D.

Sitting down to play Draft ot AD&D means accepting rules of Draft or AD&D - meaning you now do the things you don't particularly care for or accept that you will suck in the game. You don't complain about the other party FOLLOWING rules of the social contract you just accepted. You don't say you didn't sign up for it, because you just DID.



The commonest of common sense is that the best way of preventing a game from breaking on some particular vector is to have a game that doesn't break along that vector. I am sure you can add epicycles enough to stop your group from encountering any particular problem. That is different from, and worse than, simply solving those problems.

Making sure that any real product is unbreakable is kind of hard. That's why real products, such as games, sometimes do break. Making them harder to break is hence always a potential subgoal and a partial solution. If I manage to add enough epicycles to stoo encountering a problem, I have de facto solved that problem for myself. It may be different from OTHER solutions, but it is a solution, you need to do better if you want to convince me that it's worse than the problem.


Per unit time, sure. But you can just timeskip those things.

You can, but why? "wealth breaks the game if you have a lot of downtime AND don't ever actually play any of it." Which of these is the gamebreaking assumption again?


And now you say something about a living world or how the bad guys have plots too, but the point is that we've now cut out an entire category of campaigns (those with abundant downtime) to preserve WBL. The epicycles you are adding are removing things from the game, and WBL provides no measurable benefit in exchange.

Or, since you're talking about setting a cap on things, get this: you could just say that downtime can only get you TO wealth per level guideline, or some fraction of it, not above it.

For the record, in the games I actually run, I don't even use wealth per level, player characters are free to have non-adventuring professions AND I'm willing to speed over months of game time while they're raising funds. They've never broken my games this way, because costs of living, failure rates on investments, taxes etc. "living world" stuff means it's impossible to get obscenely rich and powerful that way. Best they've done is raise enough funds to GO on an adventure.


No, it's a WBL-created problem. If the pile of money you get from looting a diamond castle didn't break the game, you could put diamond castles in the game without worrying about them. It is absolutely miserable to have to do detailed accounting of every part of the scenery of every adventure you have to make sure players don't get too much money. It is equally miserable to have your clever scheme to monetize the necromancer's black onyx mine or the tapestries you looted from the baron's castle because otherwise the game would break. Again, WBL is cutting things out of the game, and we don't really get anything in return.

If you want a hard cap, use wealth per level as hard cap. Whatever absurd thing you're looting gets you to that amount in fungible items, no more. All the other solutions require cutting the magic item list to a tiny fraction of itself - what are you expecting in return of that?


That's backwards. Nothing stops you from robbing the players if that's what you want. But having "the players get robbed" be a core part of game balance removes all the games where the players don't get robbed and also don't gain game-breaking powers. The less assumptions about how the campaign works you need to maintain balance, the wider the variety of supported campaigns is.

The game where player finances are kept at sane levels by costs, theft etc. has more things happening in it than the game where player finances are kept at sane levels by a hard cap and none of that happens. A dynamic loop where wealth and items change hands is inherently capable of serving as a basis for a game, where as a static cap is not. A person who wants balance but doesn't want the robbing would also remove absurd sources of personal power acquirable through ever-ascending wealth with robbing; the real point is that this hasn't been done because players want numbers going up and hate losing more than they want balance.

Your conclusions about campaigns is convoluted. Simplicity (=smaller number of assumptions), game balance and expressive power (=greater number of expressible scenarios) are different design criteria and frequently at odds. Similar to common version of a manager's trilemma ("fast, cheap, good; pick two, compromise third"), I do not think the simplest system that's also balanced is capable of supporting all that many different campaigns, and as corollary don't think the simplest system that can support large number of campaigns can also be balanced.

icefractal
2021-12-16, 02:06 PM
Don't get sidetracked by an example. The point being made to Quertus is that in the context he's replying to, the family are henchmen, not that all henchmen are family, nor that all families are henchmen. For the record, I've had my characters marry their henchmen, and my players have done the same, that's why it's not an exotic example to me.

And to be clear, I agree not all magic-user henchmen are themselves magic-users, I'm merely pointing out that when you're a magic-user, it's an obvious goal to aim for.
Perhaps I'm unclear on your argument then. :smallconfused:

You've given examples of situations where not carrying your spellbook on your person makes sense. To which I have no disagreement - such situations do exist.

Then you seem to have extrapolated that to "Those kind of situations are the norm, and therefore keeping your spellbook on your person is an unlikely and foolish decision."
That is what I disagree with. I can only cite the limited number of games I've experienced, but on this matter I don't think anyone has comprehensive data.

Easy e
2021-12-16, 02:25 PM
And if it's only the players who ever roll, the GM don't have any way to resolve NPC actions other than fiat, if those directions don't actively interact with a PC.

Plus asymmetric mechanics means that when I take the GM seat, I need to, in effect, learn a different set of rules.

Why would an NPC interaction that did not involve a PC fail/matter? At that point it is a story-point/cut-scene which is defined by GM fiat.

In my experience, there are less things for me to know as GM for asymmetrical mechanics. I give a degree of difficulty, the Player rolls for the PC, they tell me if they passed/failed/degree of success. At that point, I apply the result for failure. Pass/Fail and apply result seems easier than consulting stat blocks, looking at charts, comparing stat vs roll, etc.

Horses for courses, of course. This is not a complaint about D&D per se, as D&D uses different mechanics entirely.

Vahnavoi
2021-12-16, 03:20 PM
@icefractal: I don't think you are misunderstanding my argument - we're at an impasse because, as you say, there's no comprehensive data. I'm simply warning against getting sidetracked by example - the overaching point is that henchmen are characters you are invested in, them being family is just one example of why.

---

@Easy E: Max_Killjoy's point about the game master rolling for NPC actions applies mostly when the point of the roll is to simulate something. For a simple example, take weather. It matters if, say, rolling on a table is presumed to be better than the game master making stuff up.

LibraryOgre
2021-12-16, 03:31 PM
New opinions!

In 5e, Thieves' Cant should have been a background, not class, feature.

Pex
2021-12-16, 04:14 PM
Yeah. Or if they did, it only lasted for a few books at most. That's my big "beef" (it's hard to call it a beef, it's not even a calf, just a sense of meh) with the way WotC is treating 5e--they seemed to have a clear intent at the beginning. A design philosophy I liked a lot. As time's gone on, it's becoming more and more ignored (if it ever really existed).

I'm convinced it's because they had an employee purge. Whatever the reason, legit, controversial, opinionated, natural business practice, the people who do 5E now are not the people who did 5E then. The original intent is gone because the original people are gone. 5E is going in a different direction, for good or for ill depending on the individual, because the new people are driving it. There has clearly been a shift in the rate of new published material.

But I still don't get my wish of example DC tables for skill use, darn it. :smallwink::smallyuk::smallbiggrin:

Quertus
2021-12-16, 04:24 PM
But I still don't get my wish of example DC tables for skill use, darn it. :smallwink::smallyuk::smallbiggrin:

I guess that means that whoever was GM at the time thought that the DC of that wish was too high.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-16, 04:33 PM
Plus asymmetric mechanics means that when I take the GM seat, I need to, in effect, learn a different set of rules. Yep

In 5e, Thieves' Cant should have been a background, not class, feature. I have pondered this, and can see the advantages of making it part of the Criminal background, or a custom background, or, keeping with tradition add as a component part of the Thief class.

I think it can work well either way, but a thief should not have to take the Criminal background to get thieves cant.

That, I suspect, is why it's a class feature.

JNAProductions
2021-12-16, 04:39 PM
Yep
I have pondered this, and can see the advantages of making it part of the Criminal background, or a custom background, or, keeping with tradition add as a component part of the Thief class.

I think it can work well either way, but a thief should not have to take the Criminal background to get thieves cant.

That, I suspect, is why it's a class feature.

Issue with that is Rogues aren't always thieves. And thieves aren't always Rogues.

dafrca
2021-12-16, 04:55 PM
New opinions!

In 5e, Thieves' Cant should have been a background, not class, feature.

I agree. I say this is true of most languages as well. I find the idea that I am X means I was born with the ability to speak a specific language without taking my background into consideration to be overly simplistic.




Issue with that is Rogues aren't always thieves. And thieves aren't always Rogues.

Amen to this for sure.

Milodiah
2021-12-16, 05:47 PM
I've never been a fan of the One Language Per Race, Plus Common thing either, but I get that its a simplification for gameplay purposes. It does make it somewhat harder to hand out the diversified languages in my settings because the rules for Knowing Languages are so weirdly built into character creation, though.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-16, 06:52 PM
Yeah. Or if they did, it only lasted for a few books at most. That's my big "beef" (it's hard to call it a beef, it's not even a calf, just a sense of meh) with the way WotC is treating 5e--they seemed to have a clear intent at the beginning. A design philosophy I liked a lot. As time's gone on, it's becoming more and more ignored (if it ever really existed).

If the people on the project, change, and the people leading the project change, the intent and aims will usually change. If you look at who was on the project and who led the project from 2012 to 2016, which was when the core was built, and then look at who is on the project and who leads the project now, of course the impact of that personality change in a creative endeavor will change.

For those of us who liked the core game, this kind of direction change can be to our taste or not to our taste. WoTC, writ large, has a single intent: sell a lot of them books and virtual products. This they have so far been true to, in terms of intent.

InvisibleBison
2021-12-16, 07:34 PM
Why would an NPC interaction that did not involve a PC fail/matter? At that point it is a story-point/cut-scene which is defined by GM fiat.

One obvious example is the PCs fighting alongside one or more NPC allies. If the rules don't say how to resolve NPC vs NPC attacks, this perfectly reasonable scenario either becomes impossible or requires the GM to invent some new mechanics, neither of which are a good idea.

Bohandas
2021-12-16, 08:14 PM
People who wanted to play humans always could play humans. Trying to bring people who explicitely didn't want to play humans to do so anyway by making all alternatives severely hampered, was always a bad move.

The level caps were just another case of "Designers don't like what players do with their system so they make a heavy handed rules change to force their vision". It is the same with the original reason to introduce alignment, it is similar to their various attempts to get people to retire high level characters and it is in some ways worse than White Wolfs complaining that people played superheroes with fangs instead of following their vision of angst and despair.

For all the "build your own world" and "change the rules to your liking" there was always way too much emphasis in D&D that the default assumption should be a human centric world and all official settings are.

Hear hear. Wholeheartedly agreed.


The level caps were just another case of "Designers don't like what players do with their system so they make a heavy handed rules change to force their vision".

It was always my understanding that the real reason was even dumber than that. I had heard that it was actully because they needed an explanation why all the long lived races didn't advance to be much higher level with their longer lifespans, and so they tried to solve that narrative issue with a gamist rule that came with little or no narrative explanation.


Personally i like playable non-humans that are alien but not that alien. Meaning that there are important differences for very specific aspects of life and society. It's easy to play that out without generally being unable to understand other PCs and NPCs.


Examples from same of the various reptile folk i have played :

- One species had females bury their eggs and then abandon them. The young ones joined the community at a later development state. So no family bounds whatsoever and no understanding of child rearing beyond taking some young apprentice in.

- Another species had sex change at a certain age. Which lead to a culture where all gender stereotypes where mixed and superseded with age stereotypes

- Playing cold blooded individuals could also mean portraying them hyperactive or drowsy depending on ambient temperature.


That is all stuff you can easily portray without being too alien or strange. And it still makes your character palpatibly different.

I like these


I've never been a fan of the One Language Per Race, Plus Common thing either, but I get that its a simplification for gameplay purposes. It does make it somewhat harder to hand out the diversified languages in my settings because the rules for Knowing Languages are so weirdly built into character creation, though.

Plus it's kind of a weird half-measure. If they're going to simplify for gameplay purposes why even have the racial languages? A better system would be just one language, or else one language per creature type (or possibly per subtype in the case of outsiders). So you'd have common for humanoids, giant for giants, draconic for dragons, etc.

(perhaps with an exception for aberrations, who might still use racial languages because their whole point of the aberration typr is that they have nothing in common with each other (or with the other creature types))


You know, this makes me remember that one thing I've always found a little odd (understandable, but still odd fridge-logic wise) is that there's so many fantastical beasts and creatures of legend in fantasy settings, but at the same time pretty much all Earth creatures are represented as-is. I know people mostly want them just because they're something they understand and don't need to read a whole monster manual entry just to say "oh so it's like a deer", but it kinda starts edging on being immersion breaking if you really sit there and think about it.

If these fantasy creatures are truly the hyper-dangerous apex predators they're depicted as, they'd surely have out-competed the mundane apex predators like bears, or jaguars, or birds of prey.

My headcanon is that there are inevitables that conjure up new plants and animals to make the forests stay forests and the plains stay plains etc.


And the depiction of them being just "higher up the food chain" than the mundane predators that some games claim makes no sense whatsoever. From a zoological standpoint there's zero incentive for a predator to consistently target other predators for nutritional purposes when the herbivores said other predators prey on are less dangerous, more numerous, and have the same amount of meat. Sure, there starts to be other behavioral reasons, like territorial encroachment or food shortage, but again, those are situations where the "lesser" predator has to adapt or be driven to extinction.

I can see two potentially interrelated reasons for this. One is the idea from the novel Dracula that life force accumulates in higher members of the food chain in kind of the same way that heavy metals do. The second explanation, which is semi-gamist, is the possibility that these new predators can gain combat XP and so would have some incentive to target more dangerous animals to increase their own power

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-16, 10:30 PM
Why would an NPC interaction that did not involve a PC fail/matter? At that point it is a story-point/cut-scene which is defined by GM fiat.

In my experience, there are less things for me to know as GM for asymmetrical mechanics. I give a degree of difficulty, the Player rolls for the PC, they tell me if they passed/failed/degree of success. At that point, I apply the result for failure. Pass/Fail and apply result seems easier than consulting stat blocks, looking at charts, comparing stat vs roll, etc.

Horses for courses, of course. This is not a complaint about D&D per se, as D&D uses different mechanics entirely.

Example: If the NPC is acting on behalf of the PCs, then as the GM I need to roll for the NPC, in the same way the player would roll for the PC. If the rules are different for the NPC doing the thing, that's two sets of rules I need to know.

If the PCs normally roll against a passive defensive stat on the NPC for an action... how does the NPC take that same action against a PC? If the PC makes a defensive roll instead, again, that's two sets of rules, and which one I use depends on which side of the table I'm on.



One obvious example is the PCs fighting alongside one or more NPC allies. If the rules don't say how to resolve NPC vs NPC attacks, this perfectly reasonable scenario either becomes impossible or requires the GM to invent some new mechanics, neither of which are a good idea.

Exactly -- and I've found that systems that do go down this road often also lack any PC vs PC rules, or have them under a "OK, I guess if you want to do this, it's your table" heading.

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-16, 10:34 PM
New opinions!

In 5e, Thieves' Cant should have been a background, not class, feature.


Agreed.

But then I think several Classes could use a bit less presumption about the character's nature and backstory.

Talakeal
2021-12-17, 12:07 AM
Why would an NPC interaction that did not involve a PC fail/matter? At that point it is a story-point/cut-scene which is defined by GM fiat.

In my experience, there are less things for me to know as GM for asymmetrical mechanics. I give a degree of difficulty, the Player rolls for the PC, they tell me if they passed/failed/degree of success. At that point, I apply the result for failure. Pass/Fail and apply result seems easier than consulting stat blocks, looking at charts, comparing stat vs roll, etc.

Horses for courses, of course. This is not a complaint about D&D per se, as D&D uses different mechanics entirely.

It comes up surprisingly often in my experiance.

For example, PCs engineer a three-way battle between them and two groups of NPCs.

dafrca
2021-12-17, 01:29 AM
New opinions!

In 5e, Thieves' Cant should have been a background, not class, feature.
Agreed.

But then I think several Classes could use a bit less presumption about the character's nature and backstory.
I could agree to this thought.

Telok
2021-12-17, 03:03 AM
One obvious example is the PCs fighting alongside one or more NPC allies. If the rules don't say how to resolve NPC vs NPC attacks, this perfectly reasonable scenario either becomes impossible or requires the GM to invent some new mechanics, neither of which are a good idea.

It gets better, you can get pcs & npcs using different mechanics for the same thing in such a way that it becomes game breaking for pcs to ally with a random npc unless you stop & rewrite the npc as a pc. 4e did some of it & 5e may be headed that way. Example: its simpler for a npc to have per-fight & recharge mechanics for abilities that pcs have on a per-rest or per-day clock. So what happens when the pcs convince, intimidate, hire, or mind control an npc... healer with a recharging 1st level healing spell power... mage with a recharging fireball spell power... warrior with a per-fight ability thats a pc daily?

Well either the npcs are better at pc abilities than the pcs are, or you change their stats to nerf them when the pcs ally with them (which several video game franchises are known to do).

Zombimode
2021-12-17, 03:31 AM
You know, this makes me remember that one thing I've always found a little odd (understandable, but still odd fridge-logic wise) is that there's so many fantastical beasts and creatures of legend in fantasy settings, but at the same time pretty much all Earth creatures are represented as-is. I know people mostly want them just because they're something they understand and don't need to read a whole monster manual entry just to say "oh so it's like a deer", but it kinda starts edging on being immersion breaking if you really sit there and think about it.

If these fantasy creatures are truly the hyper-dangerous apex predators they're depicted as, they'd surely have out-competed the mundane apex predators like bears, or jaguars, or birds of prey. And the depiction of them being just "higher up the food chain" than the mundane predators that some games claim makes no sense whatsoever. From a zoological standpoint there's zero incentive for a predator to consistently target other predators for nutritional purposes when the herbivores said other predators prey on are less dangerous, more numerous, and have the same amount of meat. Sure, there starts to be other behavioral reasons, like territorial encroachment or food shortage, but again, those are situations where the "lesser" predator has to adapt or be driven to extinction.


I attribute this to 1) the lazyness of setting and adventure writers about not taking any care about preserving the sense of "specialness" of adventuring locations and situations. Instead *every* forest, lake, cave, desert, swamp etc. is "The Landmark of Doooom" and full of monsters. *Every* city has absurdly spacious sewers full of monsters AND a Thief's Guild(tm) hiding in it. There are *always* pirates and *always* bandits and they are *everywhere*.

And 2) the monster manuels often making it sound that every creature is a *species* and as such a natural part of the environment.


We as GMs can do better, of course.
In recent times I've tried to establish a distinction between *monsters* and *animals* - that covers how different creatures are used in my adventures and NPC reactions. That line is of course quite fuzzy, but thats OK. It IS a matter of perspective, after all.
To me the line is defined by origin and behaviour. It is NOT drawn at "does exists in the real world" vs. "does NOT exist in the real world", although there is some overlap.

Clear cases:
- the hundreds of Tigers in the jungle, the hundreds and thousands of crocodiles and piranha swarms in the rivers? Animals. While one may run into them in the wild and such encounters may lead to violence, these creature usually stay away from settled lands and groups of humanoids. Accidents happen but overall the locals have learned to live with and share their environment with such creatures who are, if viewed in isolation, quite dangerous.
- the ONE Gambol (one of MM2 several "magical ape" creatures) that terrorizes the town by attacking farms and travelers on the road? Monster. Although it's theoretical killing power is absolutely dwarfed by the combined theoretical killing power of the surrounding animals it is an extraordinary threat to the town - because it is actively attacking humanoids and livestock AND is individually stronger then the majority of inhabitants and travelers. While relatively subdued it's abilities are clearly supernatural and it is not a natural part of the environment. It's origins? Enough possibilities that you don't have to presume a Gambol species.

I also learned that many players are conditioned to expect all these tropes :smallannoyed:

VoxRationis
2021-12-17, 04:06 AM
While you could have your spouse and kids as henchmen, I don't think I've ever seen that be the case. The type of places adventurers often go, I wouldn't want to bring my kids. And it's not like Wizards only marry other Wizards, you know?

I mean, standard adventurer's mentality tends to revolve around the logic that things are safest when they are in direct contact with you (both because in universe, you are a powerful individual that can usually successfully oppose actions by your enemies and because in game, the DM is limited in their ability to arbitrarily decree that things happen a certain way when you can declare some sort of countermeasure), so I could see adventuring wizards deciding to drag their toddlers along on adventures.

vasilidor
2021-12-17, 06:31 AM
On the issue of spell books and how paranoid one should be with them I have had one DM I played with tell me that I should make a back up asap and leave that one at home, and I did and the back up was fine. The other that I traveled with fell into peril when facing things like dragon fire.
Another DM I took that character to tried to offscreen kill all the friends and family and burn the treasure he stored at home. No idea how that game went on after that, I just went home and took my character with me.
The wizard Had defenses in play that I would expect to be able to play with. Hired mercenaries and magical beast that had been befriended. A vault of dangerous stuff that needed to be teleported into as well.

The Irony is that I lost that character in a move.

Easy e
2021-12-17, 10:09 AM
Thanks you for your examples Invisible Bison, Max_Killjoy, and Talakeal. That helps me understand and I appreciate your time and thoughtful responses.

Perhaps not appropriate for this thread to discuss further, but the tolerance level for GM fiat/GM Mechanics is an important consideration in game play. Not necessarily a D&D issue, but an interesting topic on its own.

Telok
2021-12-17, 11:20 AM
The Irony is that I lost that character in a move.

RL rule of thumb: three moves equals one house fire for the purposes of losing stuff.

On topic: I think D&D 5e inhabits an uncanny valley between simple-fast-abstract-easy and logical-simulation-complex.

For example: Classic Traveller is quite abstract, combat is in "range bands" that characters can move through 2 at a time, skills are often massively broad, and mapping attributes to RL stuff is extremely vague. Its also very easy to learn & play, relies greatly on the GM to fill in blank spots in the rules, and runs fast once learned. Champions is simulationist, you can map strength to real weight lifts & characters move in discrete RL distance measurements, interactions like weapon armor penetration versus a brick wall used as cover or a ballistic vest are well defined, etc.

But D&D 5e is weird. HP aren't meat but poisoning attacks like snake bites require them to be meat or theres no logic to it. Being made of solid steel makes creatures just as hard to hit as being fast & dodgy, even against things like disentegration rays that supposedly just have to touch something to work. Juvenile white dragons are juvenile white dragons if the party fights 2 of them, but fight just one and it gets extra attacks & automatic saves & can make the scenery attack the party because the narrative of "exciting fight scene" needs it to happen.

If you wanted fast & simple you could fold weapon damage into attack rolls & hp into hit dice. Just add some more ac to deal with the attack boost, increase numbers of hit dice for con & class instead of hp, and have each successful attack deal one hit die of 'wounds'. You could just collapse the skill/prof list into about 1 or 2 broad things per stat like a general "knows stuff" prof and a catch all "good at talking" prof. Less math, less rolls, more abstract. If you wanted something more simulationist you do things like armor as damage reduction & increase falling damage by the size/mass of the creature. Maybe not make the abilities of people & creatures dependent on your requirement for a "narratively exciting" fight or if they're pcs or npcs. A little more math, a bit more complex, but logical & more accurate to how things actually work.

You could even have different add-on rules or splats/modules that change the game one way or the other to let people easily add & remove complexity & options. People would buy those. But D&D 5e is weird. It inhabits an uncanny valley between simple-fast-abstract-easy and logical-simulation-complex.

Milodiah
2021-12-17, 11:22 AM
I've also always kinda nursed a grievance towards the D&D (especially 3.5/PF) skill system, and while I strongly dislike the 5e skill system for basically removing a lot of the variety from choosing, it at least removed my problems with the skill points per level thing. 2 + Int classes are just pathetic, especially Fighter since you're almost never seeing a straight Fighter with an int of 14+. You'll never get to be as competent at stuff as the dedicated skill monkeys, regardless of how much you want to be, unless you multiclass. If you want your fighter to be a sailor, you're basically going to have to dedicate all two of those skill points to Profession (Sailor) and then probably a supporting skill like Swim (or err on the side of historical accuracy since most sailors actually weren't strong swimmers), Climbing (to get to the masts), Balance (to stay on the masts and also not be crippled by rough seas), etc etc. So goodbye to all your other skills. Meanwhile, an Int-heavy Rogue might end up putting points into Profession (Sailor) because he's actually starting to run out of places he can put his eleven skill points per level and he'll just write it into his backstory that he did some time on a merchant ship.

So the Fighter's gonna be hoping for a DM who's willing to roll all those other skill checks into Profession (Sailor) and even then its running off Wisdom which probably isn't a great bonus for him anyway. Plus we all know Fighters get ****ed on the various perception rolls too, which are statistically proven to be the most commonly called for skill rolls at virtually any table. People make fun of human fighters as being the most basic thing, but what are two defining features of fighter? They thrive on as many feats as possible and need as many bonus skill points as they can get. Small wonder, then, that a race whose main perks are those exact things get paired with Fighter so often.

My other point is that I absolutely hate that Spot/Listen/Perception/etc are considered skills on par with blacksmithing or spellcraft in a lot of systems, not just D&D. Its such a disproportionately important thing in most cases that people are always putting skill ranks or points or whatever into it that would otherwise be going to sculpting their character how they want. Most people don't conceptualize their characters as "super good at noticing things" unless they're planning ahead for the mechanics of the game and acknowledging that spotter/sentry/Noticer Of The Unusual is a legit role to be filled because of how these games are built.

Its another reason I like point buy games over class and level, because things like perception can exist without being shoehorned into either skills or class features or whatever.

JNAProductions
2021-12-17, 11:22 AM
But D&D 5e is weird. HP aren't meat but poisoning attacks like snake bites require them to be meat or theres no logic to it. Being made of solid steel makes creatures just as hard to hit as being fast & dodgy, even against things like disentegration rays that supposedly just have to touch something to work. Juvenile white dragons are juvenile white dragons if the party fights 2 of them, but fight just one and it gets extra attacks & automatic saves & can make the scenery attack the party because the narrative of "exciting fight scene" needs it to happen.

That's not how it works. Legendary Creatures are Legendary regardless of how many you use-though admittedly I've never run a fight with multiples.

I'm not saying your whole point is wrong, mind you, but that specific example is.

Max_Killjoy
2021-12-17, 11:34 AM
My other point is that I absolutely hate that Spot/Listen/Perception/etc are considered skills on par with blacksmithing or spellcraft in a lot of systems, not just D&D. Its such a disproportionately important thing in most cases that people are always putting skill ranks or points or whatever into it that would otherwise be going to sculpting their character how they want. Most people don't conceptualize their characters as "super good at noticing things" unless they're planning ahead for the mechanics of the game and acknowledging that spotter/sentry/Noticer Of The Unusual is a legit role to be filled because of how these games are built.

Its another reason I like point buy games over class and level, because things like perception can exist without being shoehorned into either skills or class features or whatever.


I've seen class/level systems that make "perception" a derived stat, or a roll based on a characteristic, or something other than "You can learn to notice things, or you can learn to make horseshoes".

But yeah, overall, it tends to be better in a system like HERO than in a system like D&D.

Kraynic
2021-12-17, 01:02 PM
My other point is that I absolutely hate that Spot/Listen/Perception/etc are considered skills on par with blacksmithing or spellcraft in a lot of systems, not just D&D. Its such a disproportionately important thing in most cases that people are always putting skill ranks or points or whatever into it that would otherwise be going to sculpting their character how they want. Most people don't conceptualize their characters as "super good at noticing things" unless they're planning ahead for the mechanics of the game and acknowledging that spotter/sentry/Noticer Of The Unusual is a legit role to be filled because of how these games are built.

Going back to the fighter in the rest of your post, it bothers me that fighters usually have lowish wisdom scores and don't have perception as a class skill (in pathfinder 1E anyway). This means that a fighter makes an absolutely horrible guard of anything, including the group's campsite at night unless the fighter is a half elf and spent the skill focus bonus feat on perception. And since perception ties into combat in ambushes, determining whether you get to act in a surprise round, the lack of good support for this skill actually makes the fighter a worse fighting character unless every combat is without any surprise.

Since there are people that run the game with non-int based builds having a skill point base of 4 instead of 2, and the whole "Elephant in the Room" skill revamp as a community option, you certainly aren't the only one bothered by the skill system.

Xervous
2021-12-17, 01:17 PM
a fighter makes an absolutely horrible ... anything,

Misquoted for hot take. The only good fighters are found in the editions that can be expressed by 2^X for X >= 0

Kraynic
2021-12-17, 01:23 PM
Misquoted for hot take. The only good fighters are found in the editions that can be expressed by 2^X for X >= 0
Oh, I don't know. My current thought is that a fighter 3 (for medium armor training) makes a pretty good barbarian. :smalltongue:

Milodiah
2021-12-17, 02:20 PM
Since there are people that run the game with non-int based builds having a skill point base of 4 instead of 2, and the whole "Elephant in the Room" skill revamp as a community option, you certainly aren't the only one bothered by the skill system.

Oh yeah, I always bump 2+Int to 3+Int and call it a "pity point".

Bohandas
2021-12-17, 03:59 PM
I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm sick of the overuse of opaque middle english spellings like "draught" and "gaol" which are literally just obsolete spellings of "draft" and "jail" but are so obscure and goofy looking that they give the incorrect impreasion of being seperate words


But D&D 5e is weird. HP aren't meat but poisoning attacks like snake bites require them to be meat or theres no logic to it.

To be fair, it's always been like that. Maybe not in the specific case of poison, but there's always been plenty of situations where HP only made sense as meat. Especially since there's already two other things that do the alternate explanation of turning a lethal blow into a glancing one more clearly

Quertus
2021-12-17, 04:36 PM
I've seen class/level systems that make "perception" a derived stat, or a roll based on a characteristic, or something other than "You can learn to notice things, or you can learn to make horseshoes".

But yeah, overall, it tends to be better in a system like HERO than in a system like D&D.

I'm feeling dumb here - can you explain to me *why* you feel that some (Hero) implementations of perception are better than others (3e D&D?)?

icefractal
2021-12-17, 04:38 PM
This one's not specific to D&D, but it applies to D&D:
My appreciation of plot/trope/set-piece driven events is inversely proportional to how high the stakes are.

In a low stakes scenario (and I include stuff like "our rivals might get the treasure first" or "we might lose this contest/tournament" in that category), I'm fine with it. I still like knot-cutting, but if the GM wants to have a fight happen in the location that's a cool set-piece, or have us arrive at the dramatically-appropriate time, or the antagonist just gets away automatically, that's all fine. And I'll go with style over practicality when it fits the character - fighting honorably even against dishonorable foes, for example.

But when the stakes are high? Like "people you care about will die if you lose this"? Then to hell with all that. I'm going to get every advantage I can, not give the opposition an inch if I can help it, and get grumpy if that's disallowed (OOC).

And I know that's sometimes counterproductive, but if I'm at all invested in the fiction it just feels like my character would be a POS to do otherwise. Sure, probably a GM who wanted to use tropes in a high-stakes game isn't going to have the PCs lose because of those tropes, but thinking about it from that perspective diminishes my investment/IC-engagement with the game.

BRC
2021-12-17, 04:43 PM
I'm feeling dumb here - can you explain to me *why* you feel that some (Hero) implementations of perception are better than others (3e D&D?)?

Not to speak for Max, but I can see this.

Unlike most skills in the game (Say, Stealth, or Knowledge skills) "Perception" doesn't neatly map to something people Train for. Like, being perceptive is certainly a talent people have, just like being Sneaky, but you don't really have people who practice hearing and seeing things the same way you have people who practice acrobatics or rock climbing.


In addition, Perception is the most universally applicable skill. Other skills tend to either be linked to a specific archetype (like Stealth), or you really only need one person in the party with that skill (Like Lockpicking or a knowledge skill). Everybody wants to be good at Perception, and you're going to be asked to roll it more than a few times each session.

Other skills make you more capable in certain situations or when facing certain types of problems, but Perception is used so frequently and ubiquitously that not being good at it can feel like shooting yourself in the foot, so it's a bit of a tax.

At the same time, it's not that interesting a skill to have. Unlike other skills, investing heavily in perception doesn't really develop the character beyond "They're good at seeing/hearing things".

Lord Torath
2021-12-17, 05:23 PM
Misquoted for hot take. The only good fighters are found in the editions that can be expressed by 2^X for X >= 0
Oh, I don't know. My current thought is that a fighter 3 (for medium armor training) makes a pretty good barbarian. :smalltongue:Yeah, but you gotta do the math first. 2x for X >=0 means the only editions with good fighters are 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, 4th Edition, and (if things keep going according to the pattern Xervous derived) 8th Edition.

Milodiah
2021-12-17, 05:48 PM
Yeah, but you gotta do the math first. 2x for X >=0 means the only editions with good fighters are 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, 4th Edition, and (if things keep going according to the pattern Xervous derived) 8th Edition.

By the Gods, perhaps he's cracked the code!

Lucas Yew
2021-12-17, 06:41 PM
It gets better, you can get pcs & npcs using different mechanics for the same thing in such a way that it becomes game breaking for pcs to ally with a random npc unless you stop & rewrite the npc as a pc. 4e did some of it & 5e may be headed that way. Example: its simpler for a npc to have per-fight & recharge mechanics for abilities that pcs have on a per-rest or per-day clock. So what happens when the pcs convince, intimidate, hire, or mind control an npc... healer with a recharging 1st level healing spell power... mage with a recharging fireball spell power... warrior with a per-fight ability thats a pc daily?

Well either the npcs are better at pc abilities than the pcs are, or you change their stats to nerf them when the pcs ally with them (which several video game franchises are known to do).

Tis the very reason that made me turn away from my first TTRPG (4.5E, started early 2011), despite its other good merits (actually the opposite direction, when an otherwise friendly NPC paladin snapped for some reason and transformed into a monster stat block illogically).

The discovery of the glorious OGL and its tragic history around the same time just only fueled the rage further...

Bohandas
2021-12-17, 07:25 PM
That's one of the reasons I like 3e and 3.5, they're the only editions that don't cheat

georgie_leech
2021-12-17, 07:35 PM
The DM always makes sure those Frost Giants earned all their nonracial HD the old fashioned way, by simulating thousands of combat encounters of appropriate difficulty :smallamused:

JNAProductions
2021-12-17, 09:10 PM
That's one of the reasons I like 3e and 3.5, they're the only editions that don't cheat

You ever take a gander at Vampires?

Because, according to my math, an ECL 19 Vampire (say, a Fighter 11) is supposed to be more than a match for four CR 13 Vampires-like, say, four Vampire Fighter 11s!

Bohandas
2021-12-17, 09:29 PM
Oops! I guess I ignored ECL/LA so hard I forgot it was there


The DM always makes sure those Frost Giants earned all their nonracial HD the old fashioned way, by simulating thousands of combat encounters of appropriate difficulty :smallamused:

I do disagree with it's nonsensical equivalence between levels and HD, but the point is that at least everything has a full stat block; it's not a standee that's missing half its ability scores or whose spells and abilities work entirely different from the same spell or ability cast by a PC

Pex
2021-12-17, 09:36 PM
I've also always kinda nursed a grievance towards the D&D (especially 3.5/PF) skill system, and while I strongly dislike the 5e skill system for basically removing a lot of the variety from choosing, it at least removed my problems with the skill points per level thing. 2 + Int classes are just pathetic, especially Fighter since you're almost never seeing a straight Fighter with an int of 14+. You'll never get to be as competent at stuff as the dedicated skill monkeys, regardless of how much you want to be, unless you multiclass. If you want your fighter to be a sailor, you're basically going to have to dedicate all two of those skill points to Profession (Sailor) and then probably a supporting skill like Swim (or err on the side of historical accuracy since most sailors actually weren't strong swimmers), Climbing (to get to the masts), Balance (to stay on the masts and also not be crippled by rough seas), etc etc. So goodbye to all your other skills. Meanwhile, an Int-heavy Rogue might end up putting points into Profession (Sailor) because he's actually starting to run out of places he can put his eleven skill points per level and he'll just write it into his backstory that he did some time on a merchant ship.

So the Fighter's gonna be hoping for a DM who's willing to roll all those other skill checks into Profession (Sailor) and even then its running off Wisdom which probably isn't a great bonus for him anyway. Plus we all know Fighters get ****ed on the various perception rolls too, which are statistically proven to be the most commonly called for skill rolls at virtually any table. People make fun of human fighters as being the most basic thing, but what are two defining features of fighter? They thrive on as many feats as possible and need as many bonus skill points as they can get. Small wonder, then, that a race whose main perks are those exact things get paired with Fighter so often.

My other point is that I absolutely hate that Spot/Listen/Perception/etc are considered skills on par with blacksmithing or spellcraft in a lot of systems, not just D&D. Its such a disproportionately important thing in most cases that people are always putting skill ranks or points or whatever into it that would otherwise be going to sculpting their character how they want. Most people don't conceptualize their characters as "super good at noticing things" unless they're planning ahead for the mechanics of the game and acknowledging that spotter/sentry/Noticer Of The Unusual is a legit role to be filled because of how these games are built.

Its another reason I like point buy games over class and level, because things like perception can exist without being shoehorned into either skills or class features or whatever.

Skill use, even in 3E and especially Pathfinder, are only a problem because the DM sets the DC too high. Yes, 3E/Pathfinder has DC tables. Hooray. That doesn't mean the DM must only use the ones that are DC 20+. Nothing exists without the DM's permission, so things can exist that are DC 10 or even 5. Also, 3E/Pathfinder has Take 10/Take 20 so that should be enough for PCs to do many of the mundane things, including Fighters. The real problem comes in with opposed checks. Not every NPC needs +11 to whatever skill. DMs overemphasize the need for a challenge they give the NPC such a high modifier PCs can't compete. Sure, the NPC rogue/assassin has high stealth but not the grunt orc guards even the fighter should hear them coming. Not that the system couldn't be improved. I agree 3E's cross-class rules sucks donkey. Pathfinder got rid of that. A Pathfinder fighter can become quite good at Spot he'll see the assassin/rogue a good amount of time as long the DM doesn't arbitrarily always give him so high a stealth why should anyone bother. Given following the rules and equal dedication, the rogue does have a slight advantage as he should, but a fighter player who does not ignore Spot has a decent chance of noticing. A fighter could use more skill points, but if the player cares enough he gets a decent amount without hard optimization. A 12 IN is not impossible for a fighter in Point Buy in Pathfinder. Be human. Favored class. That's 5 skill points per level which is not terrible.

GuyOnline
2021-12-17, 10:12 PM
Not sure how popular or unpopular this is but here I go.

I dislike the Lady of Pain, Asmodeus, Ao, and the Dark Powers. They’re all powerful characters that sit above everyone else and there is no hope of anyone ever being able to take them on. This is a type of character I dislike in general, and though there are very rarely exceptions, these four characters (or entities in the Dark Powers case) are not on that list.

Oh, and one I think is more solidly unpopular: I think PCs should be able to eventually fight and kill gods.

icefractal
2021-12-17, 10:14 PM
Oops! I guess I ignored ECL/LA so hard I forgot it was therePF1 effectively uses ECL = CR, although they don't use the term ECL.

It's here (http://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary/monstersAsPcs.html), and while a few creatures are OP by this method, on the whole it's much better balanced than 3.5 ECL.

Telok
2021-12-17, 11:02 PM
That's not how it works. Legendary Creatures are Legendary regardless of how many you use-though admittedly I've never run a fight with multiples.

I'm not saying your whole point is wrong, mind you, but that specific example is.

No, the whole point of the "legendary" thing is to make a solo/boss monster into an "exciting" fight for a party of 4 or 5 because they couldn't be bothered to write an interesting combat system and instead just copied a basic version of the 3e one with fewer options and let the npcs cheat with extra actions. Its a pure metagame fudge to fill a narrative story purpose without any relation to if it makes sense in the fiction.

As usual the DM can ignore or change things but the intention of the game and the rules is to use legendary npcs as a solo or a boss with some chaff.

Pex
2021-12-18, 03:15 AM
No, the whole point of the "legendary" thing is to make a solo/boss monster into an "exciting" fight for a party of 4 or 5 because they couldn't be bothered to write an interesting combat system and instead just copied a basic version of the 3e one with fewer options and let the npcs cheat with extra actions. Its a pure metagame fudge to fill a narrative story purpose without any relation to if it makes sense in the fiction.

As usual the DM can ignore or change things but the intention of the game and the rules is to use legendary npcs as a solo or a boss with some chaff.

I think you are being too harsh here. D&D is not a combat simulator and was never meant to be. Yes the Legendary actions and resistances (plus lair actions) are to facilitate allowing the iconic uberBBEG monsters be fought as solo monsters, but it's not out of laziness. They are representative of their power and makes the combat fun and engaging. Action economy does matter. When a party of five faces one creature 5 turns worth of stuff will devastate one turn creature's worth of stuff regardless of game system, more so if the one turn creature is unlucky enough to go last. The combat may or may not end in round 1, but the creature is very unlikely to get a second turn. The uberBBEG monster, the Legendary monster, is supposed to be an epic battle. The nonLegendary BBEG monsters and NPCs are meant to be fought having minions/lieutenants with them. D&D has chosen to side with the concept that defeating the bad guys in Round 1, possibly before they even had a turn, is not fun. Once in a while it can happen, hooray, enjoy those moments but not every combat.

MoiMagnus
2021-12-18, 04:00 AM
No, the whole point of the "legendary" thing is to make a solo/boss monster into an "exciting" fight for a party of 4 or 5 because they couldn't be bothered to write an interesting combat system and instead just copied a basic version of the 3e one with fewer options and let the npcs cheat with extra actions. Its a pure metagame fudge to fill a narrative story purpose without any relation to if it makes sense in the fiction.

As usual the DM can ignore or change things but the intention of the game and the rules is to use legendary npcs as a solo or a boss with some chaff.

While some part of 5e design is lazy, legendary actions are not part of it. Well, there are, but IMO for the opposite reasons: they didn't went far enough in making solo having a unique gameplay.

They answer a need that GM like me have: I want enemies to be simple to pilot for whenever there are multiple of them (and I particularly hate the fact that monster block have spell slots and spell list and will gladly see them replaced by custom actions), but on the other hand, I want to be able to have "1 vs many" fights that are still interesting, which require the "1" to have a unique action economy. Giving them two turns per round would have been a solution, but legendary actions and lair actions are one way. The main grip I have with current legendary monsters is that conditions (like stun, etc) are still unsatisfying in those fight, and the legendary resistance is not a fun way to "patch" this issue.

I will concede one bit of "laziness": They could have added some guidelines in the DMG on how characters could gain those capacities (e.g. building your own lair, and having access to superpowers like this when defending your lair, or making a decade-long ritual by sacrificing a couple at each full moon and getting some dark power from it, etc).

Vahnavoi
2021-12-18, 06:26 AM
That's one of the reasons I like 3e and 3.5, they're the only editions that don't cheat

They actually are the worst of both worlds: they use all the widgets player characters have AND extra game master widgets, leading to ridiculously heavy and convoluted NPC statblocks.

---

In general, player character versus non-player character asymmetry exists for two important reasons: one, to keep game master freedom to play all the other characters that aren't in the pool of intented player characters, two, to make it easier for a game master set up and to run multiple characters as a single human. For example, when non-player characters use a different, simplified statblock than player characters, that maybe more rules for a game master to learn, but it's less rules for them to process in actual play. Having to sometimes go through trouble of converting statblocks is a trade-off to that, but you shouldn't actually give a damn if it's rare enough that you're still saving effort.

Lvl 2 Expert
2021-12-18, 07:31 AM
I think you are being too harsh here. D&D is not a combat simulator and was never meant to be. Yes the Legendary actions and resistances (plus lair actions) are to facilitate allowing the iconic uberBBEG monsters be fought as solo monsters, but it's not out of laziness. They are representative of their power and makes the combat fun and engaging. Action economy does matter. When a party of five faces one creature 5 turns worth of stuff will devastate one turn creature's worth of stuff regardless of game system, more so if the one turn creature is unlucky enough to go last. The combat may or may not end in round 1, but the creature is very unlikely to get a second turn. The uberBBEG monster, the Legendary monster, is supposed to be an epic battle. The nonLegendary BBEG monsters and NPCs are meant to be fought having minions/lieutenants with them. D&D has chosen to side with the concept that defeating the bad guys in Round 1, possibly before they even had a turn, is not fun. Once in a while it can happen, hooray, enjoy those moments but not every combat.

To make the monster last longer you can "just" load on more hitpoints and such. I think the main design problem might be in attack. You can just give the monster more damage, but at some point you'll get into the range where the bad guy is either killing a PC in one shot or dropping the entire party in a round, or both. Because there is a limited number of actions (regular, bonus and move) and a limited number of attacks per (regular) action, so you can basically only make them more dangerous by increasing numbers. By giving the monster extra legendary/lair actions and preferably making the most interesting options not damage based you can both spread out the effects the monster has over the entire round to give the PC's more of a chance to react to those effects ánd increase the overall effect the monster is having without raising the damage. Instead you have to deal with having to wake party members up, or having to run after the villain who keeps teleporting out of melee range, or...

As a player facing a monster with legendary actions absolutely feels like it's bull****, particularly the first few times. You're all going to die because this monster is a dirty cheater. But from a game design perspective it's better then the simpler alternative. (By which I'm not saying there couldn't be an even smarter design.)

Wait, is this a thread for posting your unpopular opinions or for making others feel like their opinions are indeed unpopular? I always forget...

Lemmy
2021-12-18, 07:54 AM
It's not a perfect solution, of course. And it does feel very meta-gamey, but essentislly giving the opponent extra turns (whether or not that's called "Legendary Actions") is basically the only way I've seen Solo Boss Battles work in D&D.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-18, 08:56 AM
Issue with that is Rogues aren't always thieves. And thieves aren't always Rogues. Then should Thieves Cant only be available to the Thief archetype chosen at 3rd level, for example? The linkage between the thief and thieves cant is baked into D&D from the thief's introduction, and the rogue is a bowdlerization of thief in the first place. (In 2e it encompassed bards as well, which I suppose is a point in the direction that your comment takes us).

Should it even exist? Where it fits in the fiction, such fiction as D&D does have in its own right, is a way for thieves to communicate in a unique style (and then we wonder if it fits into the same place as alignment languages, which is in file 13).

Gurgeh
2021-12-18, 09:33 AM
I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm sick of the overuse of opaque middle english spellings like "draught" and "gaol" which are literally just obsolete spellings of "draft" and "jail" but are so obscure and goofy looking that they give the incorrect impreasion of being seperate words
Neither of these terms are "middle english" spellings, they've persisted throughout the modern period. "Draught" is still the preferred spelling outside of North America for drinks and ship depth, for instance.

KorvinStarmast
2021-12-18, 09:37 AM
Neither of these terms are "middle english" spellings, they've persisted throughout the modern period. "Draught" is still the preferred spelling outside of North America for drinks and ship depth, for instance. which IIRC rhymes with laugh. :smallsmile:

Bohandas
2021-12-18, 11:21 AM
which IIRC rhymes with laugh. :smallsmile:

Indeed. So I'm at least correct about the spelling being opaque

Anonymouswizard
2021-12-18, 02:07 PM
Not caught up with the thread, so no idea if this has been brought up or not.

A player should be able to take as many drawbacks for their character as they wish, but unless it affects their stat/skill/feat picks they should get nothing in return. Bad eyes aren't something you take because you want an extra point in INT, you take them because it's either 1) a minor detail your character is compensating for (e.g. with glasses), or 2) a major part of the character you want to play. Which means either it's almost never coming up, or the fact that it does come up is its own reward.

At the same time, if the group agrees, there should be no impact on their assigned role. Even if they're a blind archer or mute wizard*. Outside of their declared role is fair game, but let's not limit the fantasies.


But yeah, as an Englishperson I use 'draught'. I also see it most times I'm in the bookstore, as the game called 'Checkers' in the US is 'Draughts' over here. Gaol has faded out of common usage, but I think it's still considered valid.

dafrca
2021-12-18, 04:48 PM
At the same time, if the group agrees, there should be no impact on their assigned role. Even if they're a blind archer or mute wizard*. Outside of their declared role is fair game, but let's not limit the fantasies.

Thank you for adding "if the group agrees". It is important that the whole group has fun with the "fantasies". :smallbiggrin:

Quertus
2021-12-18, 05:43 PM
Regarding mute Wizards, once upon a time, there existed a player for whom “Wizard” wasn’t sufficiently “hard mode”, who played just that. No advantages, just a mute Wizard, who was *really* limited wrt what spells he could cast. Truly epic.



I will concede one bit of "laziness": They could have added some guidelines in the DMG on how characters could gain those capacities (e.g. building your own lair, and having access to superpowers like this when defending your lair, or making a decade-long ritual by sacrificing a couple at each full moon and getting some dark power from it, etc).

Oh, yeah. I totally want my Legendary Fighter or Wizard to get an action for each mook fighting them!

Anonymouswizard
2021-12-18, 06:12 PM
Thank you for adding "if the group agrees". It is important that the whole group has fun with the "fantasies". :smallbiggrin:

Look, it's the first thing everybody tells me about relationships: no means no. Even if your fantasy is a large chested Amazon in a studded leather bikini.


Regarding mute Wizards, once upon a time, there existed a player for whom “Wizard” wasn’t sufficiently “hard mode”, who played just that. No advantages, just a mute Wizard, who was *really* limited wrt what spells he could cast. Truly epic.

Good for them. As I tend to play systems that don't specify (or in some cases just plain don't require) verbal and somatic components I'd be personally willing to let a mute wizard sign their spells.


Oh, yeah. I totally want my Legendary Fighter or Wizard to get an action for each mook fighting them!

I'm fairly certain Fighters got that on at least some TSR editions :smallwink:

Telok
2021-12-18, 06:56 PM
I'm fairly certain Fighters got that on at least some TSR editions :smallwink:

Yeah, fighter only, one attack per enemy up to the fighters level, if all the enemies were of less than one hit die. Plus every time someone ignored the fighter (cast in melee, ran past, left melee without a fighting retreat/withdraw) they got their full normal set of attacks on the fool. No limit on the number of times in a round. Fighters were sweet in AD&D 1e.

Re: 5e legendary actions.
The 5e combat system is... actually not a dumbed down 3e, I realize, its the 4e one: action-move-minor-one AoO. Then they wrote "boss/solo" npcs that are pushovers. Instead of adding to the combat engine to allow multiple off turn actions and a resource to limit them, or active defenses other than counterspell, they just said "Just add extra off turn actions & free saves to the boss/solo npc to make up for the weak stat block".

Think; does the npc have extra actions because they fulfill some in-fiction 'legendary' requirement to get them, or are they 'legendary' because they are an npc who has to have extra actions to make a "better fight". Its a lazy hack to patch weak combat rules for a narrative purpose that is disassociated with the underlying fiction.

Milodiah
2021-12-18, 07:03 PM
I appreciate that they tried to make gaming the action economy during a One Big Monster fight less viable, but they kinda didn't succeed at it. Not that I have any better suggestions, really. Partly because I don't have enough hands on experience with 5e.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-12-18, 07:12 PM
In my opinion, one-big-boss fights are best used as cinematic fights, not challenge fights. Cool terrain, flashy effects, but fundamentally not that challenging. More about the spectacle than anything. So Legendary Actions and Legendary Resistances are ok tools to get there without creating an awful mess of a system. LA let them do things more often[1], LR let them shrug off CC so they have a chance to do their cool thing. But all in all, a single monster will never live very long unless you bloat its HP way out of reach, which causes padded sumo issues. If it hits (relatively) as hard as it is tough, it turns super swingy (ie rocket tag).

So in general, I find one-big-boss fights to be a capstone on top of a set of actually challenging fights (or fights that are challenging in concert, not individually.

Is it perfect? No. Is it way better than PF's bosses (who were the epitome of rocket tag or got humiliated by status effects) or 4e's solos, who generally were just bloated? Yes. At least in my experience. YMMV.

I don't want to have to do a whole different combat scheme for the low-frequency solo boss fights[2]. Adding in a few things makes it work ok without causing me issues as a DM, and that's all I ask. But I'm not a challenge-focused DM or gamer in general. Spectacle and story >>> challenge in my book.

[1] MM LAs are usually a mobility option, a basic attack, and "something else" specific to the creature (ie spellcasting, a use of a special ability, etc).
[2] Now if you're running a campaign that's only (or almost only) boss fights against solos, well, expect some weirdness and maybe a better implementation is required.

dafrca
2021-12-18, 07:52 PM
Unpopular Opinion: There comes a time as a GM I just do not care what RAW or RAI or BTB is. I just don't. I care about the story and the fun and the mood at the table. They trump all the "theory crafting" and optimization and word/sentence analysis in the world.

At some point all I want is the encounter to go well, the game to continue, and everyone goes home after the game happy with great stories to tell and memories to relive. :smallsmile:

Tanarii
2021-12-19, 12:21 PM
Unpopular opinion: either status effects should have no place in a TTRPG, or the idea of Solo "Boss" fights needs to go the way of the dodo. Or in a suitably fantasy world, only humanoids can be hit by status effects and monsters are the solo bosses.


D&D is not a combat simulator and was never meant to be.Taken out of context this sentence would be a pretty hot take all by itself. 😂

Anonymouswizard
2021-12-19, 01:54 PM
Unpopular opinion: either status effects should have no place in a TTRPG, or the idea of Solo "Boss" fights needs to go the way of the dodo. Or in a suitably fantasy world, only humanoids can be hit by status effects and monsters are the solo bosses.

I'll go for the second option. I already hate the trend in CRPGs of SoS spells being ineffective on anything you might want to use it on, I really don't want to see it in tabletop RPGs. Although I'd be happy for instant death effects to be removed or made inherently unsafe.

There is nothing wrong with a climatic fight taking less than three rounds because you successfully landed a disabling spell. It's actually more interesting with disabling as an option rather than limiting the outcomes to 'dead', 'dying', and 'knocked into a three week coma'. Although I'm not sure I've seen a single D&D game where the players tried to knock their enemies out (have in one or two other systems).


As a side note, having most of your rules dedicated to combat makes you a combat based system. It doesn't mean you're unable to run a combatless game in the system, but it does beg the question of why on earth would you. WotC D&D is such a system.

As an extension, you do not need more rules for combat, and can have a fun game where it's boiled down to a single roll. There's nothing wrong with more rules, but they aren't necessary unless combat is going to be a focus of your game.

If a game is about combat I expect combat mechanics. If a game is about social interaction I expect relationship mechanics.

Quertus
2021-12-19, 03:54 PM
Not sure how popular or unpopular this is but here I go.

I dislike the Lady of Pain, Asmodeus, Ao, and the Dark Powers. They’re all powerful characters that sit above everyone else and there is no hope of anyone ever being able to take them on. This is a type of character I dislike in general, and though there are very rarely exceptions, these four characters (or entities in the Dark Powers case) are not on that list.

Oh, and one I think is more solidly unpopular: I think PCs should be able to eventually fight and kill gods.

They may be unpopular opinions, but they’re (mostly) ones I share.


As a side note, having most of your rules dedicated to combat makes you a combat based system. It doesn't mean you're unable to run a combatless game in the system, but it does beg the question of why on earth would you. WotC D&D is such a system.

As an extension, you do not need more rules for combat, and can have a fun game where it's boiled down to a single roll. There's nothing wrong with more rules, but they aren't necessary unless combat is going to be a focus of your game.

If a game is about combat I expect combat mechanics. If a game is about social interaction I expect relationship mechanics.

For me, D&D is about roleplaying in the context of exploration, monsters, and combat. Anything else is a bonus.

As a correlated point, any character unsuited to having their personality explored in that context is unsuited to be a D&D character.

Tanarii
2021-12-19, 06:11 PM
As a side note, having most of your rules dedicated to combat makes you a combat based system.
I was thinking more along the lines that it's derived from war game rules.

OTOH it's probably fair so say the adaption of the war game rules to heroes weren't really meant to be an individual combat simulator even then.

Anonymouswizard
2021-12-19, 06:47 PM
For me, D&D is about roleplaying in the context of exploration, monsters, and combat. Anything else is a bonus.

As a correlated point, any character unsuited to having their personality explored in that context is unsuited to be a D&D character.

Glad to see we're roughly on agreement


I was thinking more along the lines that it's derived from war game rules.

OTOH it's probably fair so say the adaption of the war game rules to heroes weren't really meant to be an individual combat simulator even then.

The interesting part to me is that, as far as I can tell, the game became more about combat the further it got from it's wargame roots. Although admittedly I've never seen 0e. But the point of early D&D as written was the exploration, not the combat.

It hit it's peak at 4e, and then 5e basically shuffled a few things back to how 3.X did them, and suddenly I'm supposed to pretend it has rules for other things now. Oh, and it added on some token mechanics poorly copied from other RPGs because narrative games were relatively big at the time.

But yeah, what modern D&D is used for is not what the original game was designed for. A party would consist of what, like 8 Fighters, a Wizard or two, and maybe a couple of Clerics? A bigger team with a lot more 'infantry' than any modern group I've been in. Now the assumption seems to be 'if you're not a magician you're not cool'.

Milodiah
2021-12-19, 07:26 PM
Not to mention that the assumptions of "magic does the heavy lifting" implicit in the meta and thus baked into most encounters is somewhat incompatible with the assumption that "the vast majority of people do not have access to magic".

We're expected to believe that a village of hundreds might only have a single Cleric in it, and that hiring a wizard to cast a spell for you has a bunch of laid-out stipulations in the DMG that say you're unlikely to find a caster of X level in a settlement of size Y, but also accept that in pretty much any encounter against a group of humanoids, at least one of them is going to be a caster. Goblins, bandits, whatever they are, there's usually someone with spellcasting there, especially with higher level encounters since fighting against dudes armed PURELY with swords, spears, and bows gets easier. Maybe one out of ten, maybe one out of five, maybe even one out of three. And though the former assumption tends to vary from setting to setting, and also from table to table, its generally supposed to be true-ish. So either 90% of the people with magic powers slip off into the woods/mountains/sewers/slums/dungeons/whatever to become Bad Guys, or the worldbuilding and encounter building have some cognitive dissonance going.

I'm giving the party composition a pass just because "adventurers" are supposed to be special, and the "profession" attracts people with a wide variety of skillsets but particularly the magically capable. But it just doesn't really vibe with me when nonplayer groups have wildly varying compositions, like the city watch might all be Fighters/Warriors/whatever, but then the criminals are clerics of trickster gods, rogues, fighters, sorcerers, etc. etc. It just feels like bad writing to me.

icefractal
2021-12-19, 08:39 PM
Not to mention that the assumptions of "magic does the heavy lifting" implicit in the meta and thus baked into most encounters is somewhat incompatible with the assumption that "the vast majority of people do not have access to magic".That's true, and fact that higher-level encounters often have mid-level people as just random goons create a lot of weirdness in terms of the setting making sense.

Personally, I go with "casters aren't all that rare (they're still a minority, but a significant one), high-level people are rare". So for 3.x, something like:
L1-4: Common, most people fall into this category
L5-8: Uncommon, think like doctors, pro-sports players, scientific experts, etc. You wouldn't have trouble finding one in your city, and you might end up knowing one or several by coincidence, but they're not most people.
L9-12: Rare, may be celebrities. You might have to travel to find the one you're looking for. At this point you may or may not be able to hire one if you're just offering money - some would still take that offer but others are already in positions of authority or comfortably established with no need for mercenary work.
L13-16: Legendary, world famous. There's a notably finite number of these in the whole world, and you may have to do some serious searching if you want to find someone with a particular specialty. Not someone you can just hire, and even getting a meeting with one might require you to have some fame/reputation of your own.
L17-20: Mythic. Not everyone even believes it's possible for people this powerful to exist. Like, even the head of an arcane university may have never personally seen a 9th level spell cast, only read old accounts of it happening. At a given time, someone of a given class in this range may or may not exist. For example, there might currently be an 18th level Druid in the world, but no 17th+ level Cleric.

This does change things from the "default" D&D-ish setting, in that low-level magic is widespread and even fairly rare higher-level magic isn't usually factored into the world building, but it still produces a world that's reasonably coherent.

Also it means that if you have mid-high level PCs, ordinary guards/soldiers/bandits/etc aren't going to be a threat in fair combat, and even elite strike teams or high-priced assassins sent after them will probably be operating at a disadvantage level-wise. To me, that's a feature not a bug, but YMMV.

Milodiah
2021-12-20, 03:32 PM
The main reason I feel so strongly about that kind of thing is that the longest-running campaign of D&D 3.5 that I ever ran had the players move through the lower levels as members of the city watch of a large city, so there was a lot more spotlight on the normal day-to-day of urban living in a magical world than there ordinarily is in a typical D&D game. Plus there was obviously a lot more focus on the operation of a city watch in such a place.

There was a large focus on the recruitment of anyone with cantrips, because the primary mode of communication across distance was through a standardized handbook of Dancing Lights. There were designated patterns and colors to create a fantasy semaphore, able to convey concepts such as "healer needed", "suspect in custody", "officer down", "civil disturbance" etc etc, with false messages being countered by frequent changes and a unique "authorization" pattern before major communications.

Say you're suddenly dealing with incorporeal undead, something your average patrolman is certainly not equipped to deal with. You throw up the signal for that, a communications officer in one of the observation towers spots it, notes its location, and sends that information along to a special "ghostbusters" contingent of the watch that's three dudes specifically geared and trained for that, who are on loan from the city's temple of Pelor. The attached wizard, whose primary job is to memorize the layout of the city and sit around with scrolls of Teleport, pops himself and those three guys over to that location. Obviously such things are for worst case scenarios, since the casting of a fifth level spell (even if it's just off a scroll) is not a small expenditure of resources, but you can count on a quick reaction force on site at speeds that would make the LAPD or NYPD green with envy in the event of a true emergency.

I made heavy use of the third party sourcebook Crime & Punishment, with comparatively low level spells like Testimony of the Broken Window- a first level Cleric spell that lets the caster have a quick glimpse into the last few seconds of a dead person's life. Obviously it's a running joke that DMs better keep in mind whether or not the party's got access to Speak With Dead (or worse, Raise Dead/Resurrection) before doing a murder mystery, but it's not like the city watch has enough casters of that caliber on hand to expend that sort of resources every time a random peasant turns up floating facedown in the river. But you can bet they can scare up a first level cleric of St. Cuthbert or something for each dead body. Same with Discern Next of Kin, and a dozen other spells. In fact, it became a point of contention as to whether or not the various spells like Zone of Truth were legally admissible, since (as far as I can tell anyway) there's no obvious signs of whether or not someone made their saving throw, and thus it could produce false negatives.

It's just a lot of fun to me to explore the "mundane" details of a fantastical world, a la Terry Pratchett, because I feel it adds so much more depth and verisimilitude that in turn helps with immersion and makes the setting more memorable.


Also, yeah, I definitely keep the "meanings" of levels in mind. I don't buy that any functioning adult member of society is level one (I usually say that you hit level two in your teenage years, and most adults are level three while competent but otherwise average ones are level four), at the same time people with double digit levels are remarkable individuals. It does somewhat interfere with the general threat level of the "starter" monsters, but honestly I treat those more as varmints and pests than as life threats, though of course the capabilities of third commoners (who do not have d4 hit dice in my opinion) are not that of third level PC classes. I fleshed out a few more NPC classes for the average person, since imo the PC classes are supposed to represent people a cut above the norm like Fighter vs. Warrior, and its less a matter of level than a matter of what class you are. Just because the thug sticking you up is fourth level, does not make him a fourth level Rogue. He's a fourth level Crook, which is the slightly nerfed version that parallels Warrior vs Fighter. He's got the experience, it's just not the same quality of experience.

So far I've only established one twentieth-level character in the setting's recent history, but he engaged in the typical level 20 arcane castermadness so much that it took a coalition of all the nations on the western side of the continent to stop him and his armies. The highest stat block I've ever made for a "normal person" is level thirteen, and he was a leading specialist in the field of abjuration magic.

BRC
2021-12-20, 03:48 PM
I think part of the bias is that low-level spellcasters are harder to make interesting, either as Antagonists or NPCs.

Like, once somebody has access to 3rd level spells, villains are throwing Fireball, which is an encounter-shaping spell, or Counterspell. Meanwhile, NPC Wizards become capable of casting spells like Sending, Tounges, Fly, ect.

Now, you certainly CAN have spellcasters without 3rd level spells, but it requires more thought (like Milodiah put into it in their campaign) from both perspectives.

An enemy blaster wizard at that level isn't much more interesting an opponent than a simple ranged fighter, so unless they're a named NPC or otherwise significant, it's easier to just use another bandit with a crossbow or something. The only real damage spell I can think of that isn't just another attack is, like, Burning Hands. Also, at low levels everybody is squishy enough that enemy casters either get targeted first and usually die, or if they get their spells off, the damage spike might take out a few low-level PC's.

You can certainly HAVE an interesting low-level enemy spellcaster, using spells like Grease and Web or Fog Cloud or even Silent Image to change the nature of the fight, but, once again, that requires more planning for a DM with a million things think about, vs just another source of damage.

Similarly, as NPCs, you can have interesting low-level spellcasters who can work with the PC's, but it requires some more work. At 3rd level you get spells that can do things which the PC's can't otherwise do (Like communicate instantly across the world with Sending), so it's easy to say "What can this Wizard do for the party. Oh, he can cast Sending for them" or the like.

Earlier than that, you have to put some more thought into what a Journeyman wizard can do for the story/ in the world. It's certainly doable, but it takes more work, especially since the spell list is so tilted towards Combat spells, what a wizard who isn't a professional violence-doer does all day requires a bit more thought.

It's certainly doable, a 1st level wizard who can cast Comprehend Languages can probably get good work as a translator. Unseen Servant is ritual-castable to produce a workforce for menial tasks (So long as the work area is no bigger than 60 feet at a time). But in both cases that's work that could be done without magic, so you have to start deliberately trying to incorporate Magic into your setting to imagine a wizard doing such things, instead of just defaulting to a mundane translator or work crew.