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Mike_G
2008-03-06, 08:54 AM
I've played D&D since 1980. Red box, AD&D, all the way to 3.5. I know my geeks and nerds well enough to expect the semi rational hate for anything new that may taint their gaming experience. But one complaint is just silly and needs to be addressed by this old grognard.

One thing I've noted about the pro/con 4th ed discussion has been some people's visceral negative reaction to the concept that "the world revolves around the PCs."

Well, that's both a very extreme reading of intent, and not really a change at all.

The world doesn't necessarily revolve around the PCs, but the game does. It always has.

Streamlined rules for NPCs isn't something that we should call the ACLU about and form an NPC rights group. It's something that has been part of RPGs since the beginning. Prior to 3.0, mosters were stated differently form PCs. In AD&D, you had no Dex score for the Orc. You had his attack bonus, AC, HP and damage, one assumed that abilities were already figured it. In the original 1st ed, ogres and even dragons got no Str bonus to damage, they just rolled more or bigger dice, so it's not WoW, it's Olde Schoole D&D to make monsters easier to stat.

I like that 3e did give the ability scores for all monsters. Somethimes you want to know if the Orc is stronger that the fighter, when trying to force a door open/hold it closed or whatever. And it's nice that a Giant gets a damage bonus, like a player with a Girdle of Giant Strength (yes, In 1e, real men wore Girdles.) The point remains that using shorthand for NPCs is not "dumbing it down" or "playing an MMORPG." It's a return to an old idea.

The other point, about monsters being dead at 0 hp but not PCs, well that's pretty much gaming. I've never, ever kept track of negative HP for the hordes of foes the PCs vanquish. Maybe the important enemy leader, or NPC important to the story, but Goblin Archer #4 has his stat block crossed out and his figure knocked over when he takes damage more than his hp. Nobody rolls stabilization for him. He's a Stormtrooper, an extra in the movie. Extras who get solidly hit are dead. Sometimes, the named enemy with a grudge against the hero survives and comes back, thirty seconds before the credits roll, bloody but still a threat, to provide a last jolt of fear, but not Red Shirt minions. Important NPCs have consistently had class levels, anyway.

And the world beyond the party needs no mechanics at all. I don't need to roll for diplomacy or magic item creation by important kings and mages half a continent away. If I say it happens, it happens, Adhering to the rules creates metagame knowledge for the players who start getting all "CSI" on the DM, saying "This sword required a Craft DC of 32, and knowledge of 6th level spells, so we're dealing with at least an 11th level Wizard," which is more immersion breaking than any stripped down "mooks die when hit" rule could ever be.

The part of the rules that matters is the part that determines how the PCs interact with the NPCs, which is often violently. Stuff beyond eye and ear shot of the PCs can and should be resolved by DM fiat.

Let it go. We play to be heroes vanquishing monsters and saving kingdoms. We really don't care about some Loremaster's Decipher Script roll.

Unless we're paying him to help us with the clue to the next adventure.

KillianHawkeye
2008-03-06, 09:04 AM
I wholeheartedly agree.

Matthew
2008-03-06, 09:07 AM
As do I. As an aside, Mike, the 1e AD&D DMG (p. 15) says that Orcs have an average Strength 12. :smallwink:

pasko77
2008-03-06, 09:08 AM
While your logic makes sense, the presence of solid rules helps the building of a consistent scenery.
You can't simply "DM fiat" everything, unless you are a very skilled and experienced DM. You maybe are forgetting the newbye point of view. It is true that i, or you, or a 90% of the readers of this forum, don't need to be told, for instance, the percentage of 5th level blacksmith in the town, but it helps.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 09:10 AM
But why dont we care about that poor old loremaster that has nothing to do with the plot at hand? Aren't his feelings vital to our well being?

No?

Oh, then let's go loot his house. :smallbiggrin:

I agree with you, the players make the game, the DM just guides them.

Mr. Friendly
2008-03-06, 09:10 AM
No, you are completely wrong.

Look, here is a completely false strawman arguement that PROVES you are wrong and a troll:

Orcs eat cabbage - cabbage has to come from somewhere - the universe CANNOT revolve around the PCs!!1111

Everyone knows that the entire universe revolves around a 5th level Kobold Sorcerer living on Toril.

(I kid, I kid.. I agree with you... but fanatics, trolls and loons will be here soon to explain why you are soooooooo wrong....)

Storm Bringer
2008-03-06, 09:25 AM
No, you are completely wrong.

Everyone knows that the entire universe revolves around a 5th level Kobold Sorcerer living on Toril.


no, you are wrong.

the universe revolves arounf me:smallbiggrin: :smallbiggrin:

but yhea, it's all about the players.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 09:28 AM
no, you are wrong.

the universe revolves arounf me



You're a fifth level kobold from toril? o_O

Fhaolan
2008-03-06, 09:29 AM
*sticks his head in the thread, looks around*

*comes back later*

*checks yet again*

You know, I expected more of a reaction to this. Interesting.

I once had a campaign world that revolved around the PCs. It didn't go over well. It had a very eccentric orbit, so every once in awhile the PCs would be all 'Ahhhh! Here it comes again! Duck!'

:smallbiggrin:

JBento
2008-03-06, 09:30 AM
Ahhhhhhh, so THAT's why they're green - it also goes a long way to explain the smell.

Now for real: I think the problem most people have is that they think 4E is going to make the WORLD revolve around the PCs - which I don't think it's true, and it wouldn't be even if no-one bothered to stat an NPC ever again (at least, one that wasn't meant to bash heads with the PCs).

Does the CAMPAIGN revolve around the PCs? Yes, it does (unless you're running a very odd game, in which case I'd love to hear HOW you're doing it - I could certainly use a break from those bastards :smallamused: ). Do events outside the PCs scope affect them? I don't see why not. If there's a war a country over, arms and armour cost is going to rise, and there will be a tide of refugees coming over to THIS country - that'll certainly affect the PCs. Do you need mechanics to decide IF there's going to be a war? No, you don't (though I'd like some), and in fact, were already absent in previous editions (weren't tehy? if they weren't, where can I find them, please?).

However, the fact that there's a war and a bunch of bloody peasants are now making me pay more for stuff, doesn't require me to know the stats of the other country's king or those of the General of the invading army - UNLESS the PC's wanna go there and knock some heads together so, y'know, a longsword doesn't now cost 50gold instead of 15. That however, would make both the war and the general in the PCs scope - for which there WILL be rules

Indon
2008-03-06, 09:32 AM
Yeah, the game's always about the PC's.

But the rules dictate how well it can be about the PC's outside of a railroaded plot.

Now, I run a 1'st edition Exalted game in which I've introduced more and more 'sandbox' elements and freed up the players to do what they want as they got comfortable with the system.

1'st edition Exalted does not have very strong simulationist rules. I had to houserule overland travel speeds and rates, pretty much right off the bat, 'cause there was a good bit of travel in the game and some of it was very much time-sensitive (such as shadowlands travel). I've had to implement a few other simulationist measures in the rules to get the Exalted system to support a group of PC's who have a strong degree of freedom.

When someone says, "the game is all about the PC's", what they're saying is, "The system takes fewer measures for contingencies in regards to actions the players may take in their environment", and what I hear is, "This system is wholly unprepared for your PC group, Indon."

Not that this is all bad. There are advantages to implementing more narrative and game-based system measures, and certainly having both strong narrative and simulation tools led to some wacky circumstances (I'm rich - I never need fear assassination because ressurections have a standard rate), but there are most certainly disadvantages to making the game more about the PC's, and less about the their interaction with the game's environment.

JBento
2008-03-06, 09:33 AM
I've read nothing about reducing the mechanics of PC-environment interaction. Do you have a quote?

AKA_Bait
2008-03-06, 09:33 AM
*sigh*

I guess I really am the only one who thinks more rules and information for your dollar is better, even if you aren't going to use most of it.

JBento
2008-03-06, 09:35 AM
But that's assuming it'll be the same-sized dollar. I doubt it would. I don't think WotC would charge you the same for a 200 page book and a 500 hundred one...

pasko77
2008-03-06, 09:37 AM
edit: scrubbed

Indon
2008-03-06, 09:42 AM
I've read nothing about reducing the mechanics of PC-environment interaction. Do you have a quote?

I can't so much access D&D insider at work, but they've spoken at least once of removing the "simulation" aspect of the game.

Some reduction in simulationism was for rules-simplification purposes - reach-based AOO's when it's not your turn, diagonal movement being two very simple examples.

Other reduction in simulationism is for narrative purposes - only the PC's getting ready access to ressurection, for instance.

These are all examples of the game world being "more about the PC's". In each case, sacrifices are made so that the game world can be more about the PC's.

AKA_Bait
2008-03-06, 09:45 AM
But that's assuming it'll be the same-sized dollar. I doubt it would. I don't think WotC would charge you the same for a 200 page book and a 500 hundred one...

Really? The suppliments seem pretty uniformly priced thus far.

Also, I look at it as more like WotC decides how long the book is, then decides what to put in it. I'd rather they skipped a lot of the 'points of light' fluff and gave me more mechanics.

Mr. Friendly
2008-03-06, 09:50 AM
*sigh*

I guess I really am the only one who thinks more rules and information for your dollar is better, even if you aren't going to use most of it.

Right, but the question is, how many rules and why?

If the rule is, for example, to calculate how many demons and devils are killed per day during the Blood War, is that *REALLY* a needed paragraph or two that could be occupied with rules for hiring a henchman, or for that matter even a table indicating the Princess' bra size by level guidelines?

Is it honestly needed to have a detailed roll table or rule for everything that happens?

Personally, yeah, I do want more rules and info for my buck - I just want it to be useful rules and info.

Knowing that the King of Unterland sacrifices 1d6 x 1d10 kittens per week on his alter to Hextor is amusing for the DM to read, but really has no practical value and could be surmised with "The King also sacrifices animals" tacked on to the end of a nother sentence.

JBento
2008-03-06, 09:51 AM
I'm sure many people "rather" the same as you, as I'm sure many would "rather" what WotC is doing. Me? I'm sitting on the fence watching it all go down :smallwink:

I do believe, however, that WotC has made its decision based on some sort of market research - even if said "research" was limited to reading mail people sent. Seem good business tactics to do so to me, and they're making quite the big bucks, so they can't be THAT dumb (though sometimes I wonder).

AKA_Bait
2008-03-06, 10:04 AM
Right, but the question is, how many rules and why?

As many as they want to give me and so I'll have them if I want to use them.


Is it honestly needed to have a detailed roll table or rule for everything that happens?

No, of course it's not. I never said it was. I said I'd rather have them than not. I can always disregard them if I want and that is less work than making them up.


Personally, yeah, I do want more rules and info for my buck - I just want it to be useful rules and info.

Can't I have both?


Knowing that the King of Unterland sacrifices 1d6 x 1d10 kittens per week on his alter to Hextor is amusing for the DM to read, but really has no practical value and could be surmised with "The King also sacrifices animals" tacked on to the end of a nother sentence.


If the rule is, for example, to calculate how many demons and devils are killed per day during the Blood War, is that *REALLY* a needed paragraph or two that could be occupied with rules for hiring a henchman, or for that matter even a table indicating the Princess' bra size by level guidelines?

For the same price, I'll take all of them. I'll probably ignore the bit about the blood war and the king of Unterland, since I don't care and they are not part of my setting. But given the option of having that paragraph or not (or more accurate, a paragraph with some mechanics or a paragraph without them) I'll take the paragraph with the mechanics.


I do believe, however, that WotC has made its decision based on some sort of market research - even if said "research" was limited to reading mail people sent. Seem good business tactics to do so to me, and they're making quite the big bucks, so they can't be THAT dumb (though sometimes I wonder).

Cough Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress Cough

Indon
2008-03-06, 10:07 AM
If the rule is, for example, to calculate how many demons and devils are killed per day during the Blood War, is that *REALLY* a needed paragraph or two that could be occupied with rules for hiring a henchman, or for that matter even a table indicating the Princess' bra size by level guidelines?

You're right. Better rules would be ennumeration of the number of demons and devils involved in the Blood War in general, and how many are availible in any given area to deal with PC's showing up doing PC-things (you know, causing chaos, killing everything in their path, etc). Though, those other two suggestions are pretty nice rules, too.

Ultimately, however, all three of those rules are simulationist (the henchman rules may be slightly less so, depending on what they are - for instance, do NPC's hire henchmen by the same rules?).



Knowing that the King of Unterland sacrifices 1d6 x 1d10 kittens per week on his alter to Hextor is amusing for the DM to read, but really has no practical value and could be surmised with "The King also sacrifices animals" tacked on to the end of a nother sentence.

A better rule would be to document that the "Unholy Gift" ritual requires the sacrifice of 20 kittens a week, or else the recipient of the gift begins taking ability score damage at a rate of 1 per hour until the kittens have been supplied. Now, all of a sudden it may end up in the PC's interest to start protecting that crazy cat lady down by the docks area!

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-03-06, 10:17 AM
The world doesn't necessarily revolve around the PCs, but the game does.QFT. The problem is WotC seems to think the game is the world, and I don't.
Now for real: I think the problem most people have is that they think 4E is going to make the WORLD revolve around the PCs - which I don't think it's true, and it wouldn't be even if no-one bothered to stat an NPC ever again (at least, one that wasn't meant to bash heads with the PCs). You have far more confidence in the creators of Diplomacy than I do.
Does the CAMPAIGN revolve around the PCs? Yes, it does (unless you're running a very odd game, in which case I'd love to hear HOW you're doing it - I could certainly use a break from those bastards :smallamused: ).For my current situation (which is unique and probably impossible for anyone to duplicate) the game world has existed with multiple campaigns going on simultaneously for the last 30 years. 2 weeks ago my group nearly destroyed the elemental plane of Chaos, making multiple characters from separate campaigns who have never met each other work together to fix it. There are currently dozens of things running around that don't matter to me or any group that the DMs still track in order to maintain a consistent world.

Edit:ignore this, I read it as "campaign world"
Do events outside the PCs scope affect them? I don't see why not. If there's a war a country over, arms and armour cost is going to rise, and there will be a tide of refugees coming over to THIS country - that'll certainly affect the PCs. Do you need mechanics to decide IF there's going to be a war? No, you don't (though I'd like some), and in fact, were already absent in previous editions (weren't tehy? if they weren't, where can I find them, please?).The problem isn't lack of mechanics, it's lack of support. It's WotC saying "If something doesn't affect the PCs it doesn't exist." That doesn't work for me.
However, the fact that there's a war and a bunch of bloody peasants are now making me pay more for stuff, doesn't require me to know the stats of the other country's king or those of the General of the invading army - UNLESS the PC's wanna go there and knock some heads together so, y'know, a longsword doesn't now cost 50gold instead of 15. That however, would make both the war and the general in the PCs scope - for which there WILL be rulesI would have at least a general idea of the stats, but that's just a different style. I don't care if someone else has a different playstyle from me, I only care if WotC seems to be supporting their playstyle and ignoring mine.

Mr. Friendly
2008-03-06, 10:19 AM
You're right. Better rules would be ennumeration of the number of demons and devils involved in the Blood War in general, and how many are availible in any given area to deal with PC's showing up doing PC-things (you know, causing chaos, killing everything in their path, etc). Though, those other two suggestions are pretty nice rules, too.

Isn't it simpler though to simply, y'know, DM it and say "well, there are basically infinite forces on both sides and the Blood War will go on as long as I want it to. If the PCs show up I will plan an appropriately challenging encounter and not worry about whether or not one of them happens to the secretary to the undergeneral of larva production for the 2nd layer of Hell, of if he is, I will write that in and make it my own"


Ultimately, however, all three of those rules are simulationist (the henchman rules may be slightly less so, depending on what they are - for instance, do NPC's hire henchmen by the same rules?).

Right but Rules one and three are basically useless rules. The DM has the ultimate authority on how many demons and devils die in the Blood War, so why bother with a table? If you do want a table and clamor for it enough, I am sure that Wotc would be happy to make a non-Core supplement that covers it, but is there any need to have that in say the DMG? The Henching rule is important and yes, it should talk about whether it aplies to NPCs as well.



A better rule would be to document that the "Unholy Gift" ritual requires the sacrifice of 20 kittens a week, or else the recipient of the gift begins taking ability score damage at a rate of 1 per hour until the kittens have been supplied. Now, all of a sudden it may end up in the PC's interest to start protecting that crazy cat lady down by the docks area!

Right, but if the King isn't a priest, or doesn't actually gain anything from it, he simply sacrifices the kittens because he is teh eeeeeeevul, there is no need for it. Maybe he does it because he (incorrectly) believes that sacrificing kittens gains him favor with Hextor and so he is fighting a genocidal war against native tribesman who (also incorrectly) know that Hextor wats catgirls sacrificed to him.

JBento
2008-03-06, 10:29 AM
Edit:ignore this, I read it as "campaign world"

And I believe when WotC said something in the same lines as I did, many people intrepreted it as you did. Which has created an upheaval that I believe is unjustified, not because that what you're complaining about is right (which it isn't) but because it's not what's going to happen. Then again, I could be wrong. As you said, these are the folks who created Diplomacy...


The problem isn't lack of mechanics, it's lack of support. It's WotC saying "If something doesn't affect the PCs it doesn't exist." That doesn't work for me.

I think (though I don't have the source on hand) what they said was "If something doesn't affect the PCs, we're not going to spend 5 pages of text creating the rules for". What's going to happen is, in fact, lack of mechanics (though, again, no source on hand, and therefore I could be wrong).

Uncle Festy
2008-03-06, 10:59 AM
Indeed.
I think the problem about creating rules for everything that happens in the world is that you have trouble deviating from it when necessary. If the rules state that at any given time, at any major demon city, there are X of demon A and Y of demon B, you have to create an elaborate in-game reason for any other demons to appear if the PCs show up in the Abyss, instead of just being able to say, "These are the demons that are here. Deal with it."

strayth
2008-03-06, 11:05 AM
Absolutely, OP. It never hurts to sit down and have a talk about what the Ps want for the Cs. In some of my older campaigns (we started doing a trade-off GMing thing with SW), it was decided early on that our PCs were not to be significant people by reputation, while they might accomplish significant things.

In other campaigns, the Ps all wanted the Cs to be very significant, which worked out too. And the last group I was in was so terrific to their DM: always bringing the food, always bringing the character, not just the sheet.

And JBento seems to have the accurate memory on WotC: the world being the PCs and the world's important factors being highlighted for the PCs are two different things, and it doesn't make much sense for WotC to have already determined what your campaign will be. I do hope, however, that this doesn't result in a dumbing-down of some worlds just to jump a gun and say PCs don't like political intrigue. Spoiler alert: done right, the PCs like anything.

Indon
2008-03-06, 11:43 AM
Isn't it simpler though to simply, y'know, DM it and say "well, there are basically infinite forces on both sides and the Blood War will go on as long as I want it to. If the PCs show up I will plan an appropriately challenging encounter and not worry about whether or not one of them happens to the secretary to the undergeneral of larva production for the 2nd layer of Hell, of if he is, I will write that in and make it my own"

It is if you set up a session specifically for being in the Blood War.

It is not if your players decide, "Hey, let's go screw with some outer planes!"

The more freedom your players exercise, the more rules like that are neccessary - the alternative is that, oh hey, your players have decided to show up on the Blood War and you have nothing ready for them.



Right but Rules one and three are basically useless rules.
I might grant you that the first two rules are useless, but the third rule is all _kinds_ of important.


The Henching rule is important and yes, it should talk about whether it aplies to NPCs as well.

Henchman hiring rules aren't important. If your PC's want to go hiring a henchman, they can go roleplay out finding one and negotiating a price. In fact, you could do that for any good or service, provided you have some basic knowledge of the region's economy.




Right, but if the King isn't a priest, or doesn't actually gain anything from it, he simply sacrifices the kittens because he is teh eeeeeeevul, there is no need for it. Maybe he does it because he (incorrectly) believes that sacrificing kittens gains him favor with Hextor and so he is fighting a genocidal war against native tribesman who (also incorrectly) know that Hextor wats catgirls sacrificed to him.

In which case, cornering the kitten market instead causes the King to divert forces away from the tribesmen towards you and your kitten supply, allowing for a surprise attack on the part of the tribesmen at the exact moment you throw open the doors to the inn you're holed up in only to reveal that every kitten in the place you had polymorphed into a jaguar!

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-06, 12:03 PM
Right but Rules one and three are basically useless rules.

Rule one may be useless, but rule three assumes that the princess has taken levels in the Harloteer class which increases bra size in relation to the amount of levels attained in the class. Look for this new base class and more in later 4th ed. suppliments!

On to the matter at hand: Speaking for myself and other DMs in my circle, I've never browsed through the DMG for rules on how my world should 'operate' behind the scenes. I always make up that information on my own. It sometimes adds more quirks to some towns. For example:
PCs: How many blacksmiths are in town?
Me: After asking around, you find out that there are about 3.
PCs: That's odd, there should be more...
Me: (On the fly -> ok, for the last few years, the town has had a bit of a metal shortage, and a lot of the smiths moved to different areas. If the PCs keep asking, this is my story. BTW, why are they so worried about the number of blacksmiths in town?)


But the rules dictate how well it can be about the PC's outside of a railroaded plot.

I ran a game that lasted about a year and a half, and the PCs never quite stayed on track, and I constantly had to change/update the world and the campaign on the fly (and a lot of that was stuff the PCs would never learn or find out about). I didn't consult the DMG or any rules supplements once (I guess it was all DM fiat, if I'm using the term correctly), yet the game still maintained consistency and the PCs were never the wiser that they had gone so far off the intended trail that a large portion of the campaign was being done with very little prep. I'm by no means the best DM out there, but I can't say that it was very difficult.

Indon
2008-03-06, 12:17 PM
PCs: How many blacksmiths are in town?
Me: After asking around, you find out that there are about 3.
PCs: That's odd, there should be more...
Me: (On the fly -> ok, for the last few years, the town has had a bit of a metal shortage, and a lot of the smiths moved to different areas. If the PCs keep asking, this is my story. BTW, why are they so worried about the number of blacksmiths in town?)

Nice. My players are more like:

PCs: We search the ruins.
Me: You eventually come across a number of parties of competing adventurers, grouped together into a single compound for safety.
PC 1 (to other PCs): We should kill them, rebuild the ancient ruins, and make it into our base of operations.
PC 2 (to other PCs): But first, we should make them turn on each other so that they soften each other up!
PC 3 (to other PCs): Hey, can we first kill that snake-guy that we heard that rumor about? We can get to killing the mortals later.
PC 4 (to other PCs): Let's compromise. We can make them all turn on each other, then we go find the snake-guy, then we come back and finish off what's left.
Me: ...


Edit: Admittedly, it _is_ Exalted, that's just how things go sometimes.

Morty
2008-03-06, 12:19 PM
Let it go. We play to be heroes vanquishing monsters and saving kingdoms. We really don't care about some Loremaster's Decipher Script roll.


Maybe you want. It's perfectly fine, however some of us prefer their characters to be a part of detailed world instead of the world being grey, dull background to the players who kick in doors and slay monsters. We want our enemies to be more than bags of XP and plot hooks conveniently placed for players. I want my NPCs to seem like living people who will be there when PCs are long gone or even dead. When I DM, I'd like to have some help when I have to answer players who ask the bartender about the news from the wide world. The game revolves around PCs. The world shouldn't.
Also, what is with the argument "the older editions were like that"? It's completely missed, since there's nothing inherently better about older editions.

Rutee
2008-03-06, 12:21 PM
Nicely done, Mort. It takes real style to make cinematically inclined people look like hack-n-slash obsessed dolts. Real classy.

Morty
2008-03-06, 12:26 PM
Nicely done, Mort. It takes real style to make cinematically inclined people look like hack-n-slash obsessed dolts. Real classy.

About as much style as it takes to completely disregard people with concern about details as needlessly nitpicky and debating on stats of every single orc.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 12:28 PM
10+ pages on the "evil vs evil no more" thread is a little bit beyond nitpicky, I think. :smalltongue:

Rutee
2008-03-06, 12:30 PM
About as much style as it takes to completely disregard people with concern about details as needlessly nitpicky and debating on stats of every single orc.

Taking your stance to the logical extreme is not the same thing as completely altering the basic thought process and motivation behind your stance.

Indon
2008-03-06, 12:36 PM
Nicely done, Mort. It takes real style to make cinematically inclined people look like hack-n-slash obsessed dolts. Real classy.

What M0rt describes is the ultimate result of excluding simulationist rules, just as princess bust size by level is the ultimate result of extending them.

What's really ocurring, of course, is much smaller changes across the reasonable middle of the continuum - each change has both minor benefits and downsides. By using extreme cases, the downsides are better illustrated.

Just as I didn't take Mr. Friendly's princess bust sizes as a serious argument, or an insult, I don't imagine M0rt's statements should either.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-06, 12:38 PM
Perhaps the time has come? We should settle this kinds of petty disputes once and for all, using the greatest form of duel known to man and woman: A Marshmallow CD fishfight!

Rutee
2008-03-06, 12:39 PM
No, what Mort was describing was gamist rules taken as the only thing that matters ever, to the exclusion of all else, not the complete removal of simulationism (Which I have never seen taken as a position in the first place).

Morty
2008-03-06, 12:46 PM
Taking your stance to the logical extreme is not the same thing as completely altering the basic thought process and motivation behind your stance.

Could be, but I haven't done neither of the two. I've listed the things I like about RPGs that are endangered by focusing the game too much on PCs.


No, what Mort was describing was gamist rules taken as the only thing that matters ever, to the exclusion of all else, not the complete removal of simulationism (Which I have never seen taken as a position in the first place).

Was it? Darn it, and here I thought I was countering the "gameworld should revolve around players who kick in doors, slay monsters and save princesses" argument Mike_G presented with a similiar one except from the other side.

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-06, 12:47 PM
Nice. My players are more like:

PCs: We search the ruins.
Me: You eventually come across a number of parties of competing adventurers, grouped together into a single compound for safety.
PC 1 (to other PCs): We should kill them, rebuild the ancient ruins, and make it into our base of operations.
PC 2 (to other PCs): But first, we should make them turn on each other so that they soften each other up!
PC 3 (to other PCs): Hey, can we first kill that snake-guy that we heard that rumor about? We can get to killing the mortals later.
PC 4 (to other PCs): Let's compromise. We can make them all turn on each other, then we go find the snake-guy, then we come back and finish off what's left.
Me: ...


Edit: Admittedly, it _is_ Exalted, that's just how things go sometimes.

My example was one of their less destructive (yet equally strange) array of in-game questions. I had to tone down my descriptiveness once the players thought everything was either super important or a red herring with no in betweens. At least your group plans their actions before taking them :smallbiggrin:

Indon
2008-03-06, 12:47 PM
No, what Mort was describing was gamist rules taken as the only thing that matters ever, to the exclusion of all else, not the complete removal of simulationism (Which I have never seen taken as a position in the first place).

NPC's wouldn't exist as plot hooks in a purely gamist environment.

And adding simulationist rules to D&D hasn't been advocated, either. Just not removing what is there, or removing less.

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-06, 12:55 PM
Maybe you want. It's perfectly fine, however some of us prefer their characters to be a part of detailed world instead of the world being grey, dull background to the players who kick in doors and slay monsters. We want our enemies to be more than bags of XP and plot hooks conveniently placed for players. I want my NPCs to seem like living people who will be there when PCs are long gone or even dead. When I DM, I'd like to have some help when I have to answer players who ask the bartender about the news from the wide world. The game revolves around PCs. The world shouldn't.
Also, what is with the argument "the older editions were like that"? It's completely missed, since there's nothing inherently better about older editions.

I was sort of following you up until you say "When I DM, I'd like to have some help when I have to answer players who ask the bartender about the news from the wide world." What does the DMG offer that could help with that kind of question? If I'm using a homebrew setting, I already established what's going on in the world, without using the DMG, and I keep minor tabs on it as the game progresses, just in case it'll ever become important. However, I do all of this without referencing any rules. My views on DMing may be wrong, but knowing what goes on in the parts of the world the PCs aren't in seems more like a DM issue and not a rules issue.

Indon
2008-03-06, 12:58 PM
"When I DM, I'd like to have some help when I have to answer players who ask the bartender about the news from the wide world." What does the DMG offer that could help with that kind of question?

General information about technological level and economy, I'd say.

But, hey, who cares about the price of tea in Stormreach, right? :P

Mike_G
2008-03-06, 01:07 PM
Maybe you want. It's perfectly fine, however some of us prefer their characters to be a part of detailed world instead of the world being grey, dull background to the players who kick in doors and slay monsters. We want our enemies to be more than bags of XP and plot hooks conveniently placed for players. I want my NPCs to seem like living people who will be there when PCs are long gone or even dead.


My world, built over years, with detailed rulers for each kingdom and bunches of homebrewed monsters and three homebrewed pantheons is not grey background.

I have never rolled stabilization for Goblin Archer # 4.

These are not mutually exclusive.




When I DM, I'd like to have some help when I have to answer players who ask the bartender about the news from the wide world. The game revolves around PCs. The world shouldn't.


Sure. That's why Gather Info is a skill, if you want it. Or, you just give them the info you want them to have. I run political intrigue campaigns all the time.





Also, what is with the argument "the older editions were like that"? It's completely missed, since there's nothing inherently better about older editions.

No, thye aren't inherently better.

That argument is there to refute the ongoing gripe that stripped down NPCs are "MMORPG influence."

When I was first playing computer RPGs, you were playing a damn "g" fighting ampersands in the old ASCII "Moria." My point was the old editions predate the holy bejeezus out of WoW, and the different rules for NPCs were there, and thus cannot be a result of WoW influence, so stop saying it.

Mr. Friendly
2008-03-06, 01:17 PM
That argument is there to refute the ongoing gripe that stripped down NPCs are "MMORPG influence."

One of the delicious ironies to me about that arguements is that it is so clear when someone is just repeating a mantra without ever really playing an MMO or CRPGs. Because in most games like that, the amount of immersion is tremendous and the actual levels of depth to the NPCs is, in many cases, amazing. Sure, that dwarf over there does have a quest available icon over his head, but he has a lot to say about the history of the war between the dwarves and the bugbears. Hey look another NPC, one without a quest icon, I can just sit and talk to them about whatever they know....just for the immersion factor.

Sure they have a script they follow and generally can't talk about things outside of their scope of knowledge, they still tend to be amazingly real in many cases. Still, is that really much different from a DM running an adventure with a small handfull of notes about random bartender #2344569597 in Podunk Town #24944350? I don't think so.

That's why I find the "MMo influence has stripped away NPC personality" arguement to be just silly. MMOs have more in depth NPCs than in most campaigns I have played. Hell, they often have more personalities than real life people I meet at work.

Morty
2008-03-06, 01:21 PM
My views on DMing may be wrong, but knowing what goes on in the parts of the world the PCs aren't in seems more like a DM issue and not a rules issue.

Well, I admit it's more of a design issue rather than rules issue.


My world, built over years, with detailed rulers for each kingdom and bunches of homebrewed monsters and three homebrewed pantheons is not grey background.

I have never rolled stabilization for Goblin Archer # 4.

These are not mutually exclusive.

Good to hear. However, NPC being barely stated-out redshirts who die instantly as soon as they reach 0 HP don't help in creating immersive, belivable world. Sure, it's a waste of time to carefully flesh out random mooks. But it's desirable for them to follow the same basic rules as PC. And again, maybe you don't care about all of this. It's perfectly fine. But other people do. And handwaving things you don't care about is much, much easier than making up things the game lacks.


MMOs have more in depth NPCs than in most campaigns I have played.

Just out of curiosity: what MMOs did you play? I've admitedly played only Guild Wars, but NPCs there didn't seem to be more than statues repeating the same text over and over. I don't follow "4ed=MMO=Evil" paradim, I'm just curious.

Mike_G
2008-03-06, 01:24 PM
*sigh*

I guess I really am the only one who thinks more rules and information for your dollar is better, even if you aren't going to use most of it.


Some rules, yes.

I have been a big proponet of the rules heavier 3.5 over 1e for things like skills, multiclassing, etc.

I want rules for trying skills outside your class role, for disarming, for grappling, for pulling the carpet out from under the Cardinal's Guards or for attacking while swinging on a chandelier.

I don't need or want rules for NPCs that make it necessary for the curator of the Great Library of Ecnarwal to be a 20th level expert, because then when the barbarian hordes torch his library and toss him out of a window in the tallest tower, he bounces when he hits the ground because of his 20d6 HP, dusts himself off, then uses his BAB of +15 to mop the floor with a bunch of the invading 1st level Warriors. I don't want the players to say "Hey, that guy must be 10 level if he created that sword." If the Frensean ambassador's daughter seduces the Crown Prince of Kerthor so that his army will come to her nation's aid against the invasion of the Thytan Empire, I don't think she needs a PC class to do that, she just needs to be pretty and good in the sack, and we certainly don't need rules for that, or feats like No Gag Reflex, or SLAs like Can Breathe Through Ears.

I want to handwave that stuff, and not give the impression that I've violated rules to do it.

Starbuck_II
2008-03-06, 01:29 PM
Good point, Mr. friendly.

Where did this "mantra" (sttrange term to use) start that MMO's mean:
a. no personality
b. simple to try but hard to master
c. Roles only certain allowed per class (party won't invite)

Why? I mean, are there loys MMO's with bad npcs? Why do people play those ones?
I personally like Pirates of Carribean Online: great npc (some of them). No fiorced roles (due to only one class).

Indon
2008-03-06, 01:32 PM
Just out of curiosity: what MMOs did you play? I've admitedly played only Guild Wars, but NPCs there didn't seem to be more than statues repeating the same text over and over. I don't follow "4ed=MMO=Evil" paradim, I'm just curious.

Lord of the Rings Online is pretty excellent in that sense.

Really, the only thing I view as being more MMO-ish in a non-good way with the new version of D&D is the shift from logistics to tactics in combat.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 01:32 PM
Whatever happened to just having the game rules and then when something goes off track, the GM wings it? Do you need the details on the ancient war between x race and y race that ended 8e5719473892471304^2 years ago to be able to put a member of y race as a random encounter?

It just sounds like you want everything handed to you so you don't have to improv or make the campaign world yourself.

Indon
2008-03-06, 01:34 PM
It just sounds like you want everything handed to you so you don't have to improv or make the campaign world yourself.

To take a page from Rutee's book, it must take real style to make wanting a game system that better supports the simulation aspect of the game into being lazy.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-06, 01:37 PM
"There must be some misunderstanding,
There must be some kind of mistake..."

Thanks for the appropiate quote, Genesis.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 01:39 PM
But that's what it is... laziness. If you want the simulation handed to you buy the campaign source books or the books directly related to that aspect of the simulation.

Ancient War of X vs Y - $19.95. All the details of a war long forgotten for you to put into your campaign. For details on the races, please see the monster manual.

Indon
2008-03-06, 01:41 PM
But that's what it is... laziness. If you want the simulation handed to you buy the campaign source books or the books directly related to that aspect of the simulation.

Ancient War of X vs Y - $19.95. All the details of a war long forgotten for you to put into your campaign. For details on the races, please see the monster manual.

Well, then. I guess a balanced system isn't important, either, since you can balance it yourself. Or, better yet, buy new books with balanced classes. Tome of Battle - 19.95 USD.

Because the system can't be bad if you can just fix it, right? (Edit: And by extention, wanting a system you don't need to fix to make support a style of gaming must be lazy)

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 01:42 PM
The system is the mechanical rules to play the game. You want extras.

The game cannot exist without the rules, it CAN exist without the "simulation" aspect.

Indon
2008-03-06, 01:49 PM
The system is the mechanical rules to play the game. You want extras.

The game cannot exist without the rules, it CAN exist without the "simulation" aspect.

You're confusing content with simulationist rules.

Examples of simulationist rules:

-Equipment charts with prices and weights.
-Encumbrance systems.
-Object toughness systems.
-Taking more movement to move diagonally than to move straight.
-Fatigue from swimming or running too long.
-Maximum GP item value by city size.
-Uniform systems for PC's and NPC's (yes, having everyone run on the same, consistent system is decidedly simulationist).

These rules make it easier to make a game world come alive, by assisting with things like internal consistency as well as assisting with improvisational rulings.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-06, 01:52 PM
You're confusing content with simulationist rules.

Examples of simulationist rules:

-Equipment charts with prices and weights.
-Encumbrance systems.
-Object toughness systems.
-Taking more movement to move diagonally than to move straight.
-Fatigue from swimming or running too long.
-Maximum GP item value by city size.
-Uniform systems for PC's and NPC's (yes, having everyone run on the same, consistent system is decidedly simulationist).

These rules make it easier to make a game world come alive, by assisting with things like internal consistency as well as assisting with improvisational rulings.

I agree with all of those save for the diagonal movement and uniform system, because most of those are systems needed to make the game function. NPCs are not as important as PCs. That's what make them PCs. The diagonal movement rule was just clumsy and inaccurate, because if you just move ONE square diagonally, it takes less effort than 2. One square is only five feet but two is fifteen. That's unrealistic.

Rutee
2008-03-06, 01:53 PM
Why are you complaining about a system no longer supporting your intent? It's not like I went around whining about DnD before. I just /didn't care/ and mostly ignored it.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-03-06, 01:58 PM
I agree with all of those save for the diagonal movement and uniform system, because most of those are systems needed to make the game function. NPCs are not as important as PCs. That's what make them PCs.That's where we disagree.
The diagonal movement rule was just clumsy and inaccurate, because if you just move ONE square diagonally, it takes less effort than 2. One square is only five feet but two is fifteen. That's unrealistic.Yes, but the 4.0 system is even worse. Did Wizard's entire staff flunk geometry?

AKA_Bait
2008-03-06, 02:03 PM
Whatever happened to just having the game rules and then when something goes off track, the GM wings it? <snip>
It just sounds like you want everything handed to you so you don't have to improv or make the campaign world yourself.

I still exists, and it will in every system, because no system is going to be able to deal with every eventuality. Oh, and I don't think wanting a robust systems is the same as being lazy and am marginally offended by the implication.


I don't need or want rules for NPCs that make it necessary for the curator of the Great Library of Ecnarwal to be a 20th level expert, <snip>

I want to handwave that stuff, and not give the impression that I've violated rules to do it.

I don't really want that either, but there are other ways to fix it without the need to abandon a unified system. Like... say... lifting the skill caps.


But that's what it is... laziness. If you want the simulation handed to you buy the campaign source books or the books directly related to that aspect of the simulation.

It's not being handed to me, I'm paying for it. It's not lazy to want what you buy to give you what you want. At worst, it's unrealistic.


The diagonal movement rule was just clumsy and inaccurate, because if you just move ONE square diagonally, it takes less effort than 2. One square is only five feet but two is fifteen. That's unrealistic.

Honestly, although it was clunky, it seemed more realistic to me than telling Pythagoras to go sit in a corner and shut up.


Why are you complaining about a system no longer supporting your intent? It's not like I went around whining about DnD before. I just /didn't care/ and mostly ignored it.

Because it's fun? :smallwink:

Indon
2008-03-06, 02:12 PM
I agree with all of those save for the diagonal movement and uniform system, because most of those are systems needed to make the game function. NPCs are not as important as PCs. That's what make them PCs.
The Players know their PC's are more important than NPC's. But by treating them differently mechanically, you make it more evident to the characters themselves, which can weaken immersion.


The diagonal movement rule was just clumsy and inaccurate, because if you just move ONE square diagonally, it takes less effort than 2. One square is only five feet but two is fifteen. That's unrealistic.

It was how you simulated a roughly 1.4 ratio in an elegant way, and it's definitely more realistic than the hypotenuse of a right triangle with sides A and B being equal to A. It's just not as convenient. Sacrificing this rule is a gamist measure at the cost of simulationism - the game itself is smoother and easier to play, but diagonals being the same distance as straight lines on a square grid is mathematically inaccurate, and thus quite literally unrealistic.

Charity
2008-03-06, 02:13 PM
Man I wish they'd gone for hexes and put an end to the whole sorry grid mess.
we use a ruler center to center, as it goes, it has always seemed the easiest way

Truely is it vital that your during combat movement doesn't conform to euclidean geometry, especially as you know you are chucking fireballs around and fighting dragons on the back of a pegasus?

Indon
2008-03-06, 02:14 PM
Truely is it vital that your during combat movement doesn't conform to euclidean geometry, especially as you know you are chucking fireballs around and fighting dragons on the back of a pegasus?

Without a way to illustrate that the same distance is shorter diagonally than straight, I'm afraid you don't cast Fireballs.

You cast Firesquares.

Artanis
2008-03-06, 02:15 PM
-Uniform systems for PC's and NPC's (yes, having everyone run on the same, consistent system is decidedly simulationist).
Uh...this one is in 4e. If the DM wants an NPC to use the same rules as a PC, he (quite shockingly!) has an NPC use the same rules as a PC. The info they've given us even tells us to do so if the situation warrents.

Mr. Friendly
2008-03-06, 02:20 PM
Uh...this one is in 4e. If the DM wants an NPC to use the same rules as a PC, he (quite shockingly!) has an NPC use the same rules as a PC. The info they've given us even tells us to do so if the situation warrents.

Hush you! Don't ruin a perfectly good flamewar with your "reason" and "rationality". If they want to keep fighting windmills giants, let them.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-06, 02:21 PM
For the love of god. This has gone from an interesting debate of opposing sides to a descent into the pits of mad pettyness, flaming, and refusal to see other viewpoints. And it was funny for a while, but it's lousy now. Can we switch to something different now? Or at least have every debater switch sides and try to dfend the opposing viewpoint?

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-03-06, 02:25 PM
Uh...this one is in 4e. If the DM wants an NPC to use the same rules as a PC, he (quite shockingly!) has an NPC use the same rules as a PC. The info they've given us even tells us to do so if the situation warrents.The problem is, if an NPC can do it, why can't I? In 3.x, If I wanted to play an NPC class, I could. They progressed on the same mechanics as player characters. In 4.0, they're going to be different, and that difference is just handwaved away.

Charity
2008-03-06, 02:27 PM
Without a way to illustrate that the same distance is shorter diagonally than straight, I'm afraid you don't cast Fireballs.

You cast Firesquares.


suits me, seriously Stan the mage doesn't care as long as he gets to fit an extra goblin in the corner of his firecube (it's a three dimensional space mustn't forget that.)

Do you use trig to figure range if one opponant is above the other?
Do you account for the fact that the higher shot should in fact travel further as the parabola is elongated by the height even though the point to point distance has increased.
How about wind velocity, a very important factor in the equation, if so do you account for the additional path length that firing into the wind will produce?

The answer to some of those might be yes, but not all, the simple fact is that you have to draw the line somewhere. You have to say this is as complicated as it needs to be, otherwise you are all gonna need a degree in physics just to work out your range to target, wizards have moved that line, just a little, in the grand sceme of things I feel you will come to realise it matters little.

Ooo look who got all wordy...

Artanis
2008-03-06, 02:29 PM
The problem is, if an NPC can do it, why can't I? In 3.x, If I wanted to play an NPC class, I could. They progressed on the same mechanics as player characters. In 4.0, they're going to be different, and that difference is just handwaved away.
So just pick an enemy of the appropriate race, level, and type out of the monster manual.

Titanium Dragon
2008-03-06, 02:51 PM
I guess I really am the only one who thinks more rules and information for your dollar is better, even if you aren't going to use most of it.

No, other people understand that you WON'T get more for your dollar; you aren't getting more rules and information for your dollar, the rules/information:dollar is kept pretty constant. To add this stuff, they'd have to subtract stuff (such as, say, other monsters). Clearly, then, getting stuff you never use is injurious because you're getting LESS than you'd get otherwise.

This is what you're not understanding; that if you got your way, you'd actually NOT be getting more rules and information for your dollar; you'd be getting the same amount (because they'd cut out other rules or information) or charge you more.

That's how the real world works.

Sure, everyone WANTS stuff for free, but that's not what you're going to get, and saying such things is silly. WotC is a company; you have to pay for what you're going to recieve.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 02:52 PM
You're confusing content with simulationist rules.

Examples of simulationist rules:

-Equipment charts with prices and weights.
-Encumbrance systems.
-Object toughness systems.
-Taking more movement to move diagonally than to move straight.
-Fatigue from swimming or running too long.
-Maximum GP item value by city size.
-Uniform systems for PC's and NPC's (yes, having everyone run on the same, consistent system is decidedly simulationist).

These rules make it easier to make a game world come alive, by assisting with things like internal consistency as well as assisting with improvisational rulings.

You see, all of these are rules I think make the game world look creaky and fake.

The most obvious example here are the Object Toughness rules, which pretty much mandate the DM to ignore the rules in order to account for any tool being able to do the job for which it was actually designed. The classic example here is that Stone has Hardness 8, and a Pick does 1d8 damage. Now fair enough, that means that with a positive Strength bonus you can smash stone with a pick, but a Greataxe winds up being more effective, and an Adamantine Dagger (or, for that matter, Adamantine Wiffle Bat) is better than either of them.

The Encumbrance rules are similarly ludicrous. Most non-D&D GMs would start saying "You're carrying how much?!" long before a character with a decent Strength score started taking any kind of game mechanical penalty in D&D.

As for the diagonal movement thing, doesn't the fact that your character is walking on a square grid already pretty much wreck any sense of realism? Real people aren't restricted to moving along compass points.

Then there's all the economy "simulation" that goes on. Item prices, GP limit by city size, Craft and Profession GP awards, the list goes on. We're talking about a "simulation" where an iron pot is worth less than the iron it's made of, where no two trades are differently lucrative and of course where the amount of money you make at a job isn't changed by season, local conditions, competition, war, or famine.

To put it another way, in a game with no "simulationist" rules, the players might arrive at a town, and I might describe it like this:

"Daggermere is a quiet mining town, as you pass through their poorly-defended gates, you see stocky, muddied miners resting their picks against a wall as they load all of the ore they have mined onto a wagon to be taken into the city and sold to the skilled smiths of Erastown."

Win a game with simulationist rules, the description goes more or less like this:

"Daggermere is a quiet mining town, as you pass through their poorly defended gates, you see slender, intelligent looking miners resting their greatswords on the floor, as they quaff the copious quantities of ale they have purchased with the money that they automatically acquire every time they make a Profession: Mining skill check. One of them gets up and tries to walk to the bar, but finds he cannot reach it, because it is not an exact multiple of five feet from his present position."

To put it another way, I personally feel that no simulationist element is better than a bad simulationist element.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 02:58 PM
The problem is, if an NPC can do it, why can't I? In 3.x, If I wanted to play an NPC class, I could. They progressed on the same mechanics as player characters. In 4.0, they're going to be different, and that difference is just handwaved away.

This, as ever, comes back to the prescriptive/descriptive rules thingy.

Some people look at the 3.X rules and say "this is ridiculous, why should the world's greatest scholar have to have 20D6 Hit Points and a +15 BAB just in order to justify his Knowledge skills?"

Other people look at the 4.X rules and say "this is ridiculous, how can an NPC get all those Knowledge skills at such a low level?"

These two sets of people are basically never going to agree.

Charity
2008-03-06, 03:08 PM
These two sets of people are basically never going to agree.

Never say never!

IGOR fire up the gene splicer...

Ok true, and if they did we'd all have bugger all to write about here, as long as they listen to one another and bring something new to the debate it's all good.

Morty
2008-03-06, 03:12 PM
These two sets of people are basically never going to agree.

That's the problem with discussions like that. We have two groups of people with almost completely opposite views on a mostly subjective issue, so all we get is both sides repeating "no, ur wrong u n00b" in more elaborate ways.

Indon
2008-03-06, 03:13 PM
Uh...this one is in 4e. If the DM wants an NPC to use the same rules as a PC, he (quite shockingly!) has an NPC use the same rules as a PC. The info they've given us even tells us to do so if the situation warrents.

We know that the DM can use PC systems at least sometimes for NPC's, but we don't know if he can use PC systems consistently. It's not a bad point, though.


Do you use trig to figure range if one opponant is above the other?
Add 5 feet to the range for every 10 feet above or below the origin point that the attack is - using the same 1.5 ratio as standard diagonal movement. It's a _little_ trickier than that, of course, if say you're firing nearly straight up, but the rule is perfectly applicable.


Do you account for the fact that the higher shot should in fact travel further as the parabola is elongated by the height even though the point to point distance has increased.
Magic is probably not affected by gravity, and mundane weapons presumably have arc calculated into their ranges already.


How about wind velocity, a very important factor in the equation, if so do you account for the additional path length that firing into the wind will produce?
Generally, wind provides mundane ranged weapons with a penalty to hit, or makes hitting impossible. Of course, it doesn't affect magic.


The answer to some of those might be yes, but not all, the simple fact is that you have to draw the line somewhere.

Yeah, and the line is being drawn at least (I don't know the fate of, say, encumbrance, so take this with a grain of salt) a little bit further away from being able to produce a consistent and believable world.


To put it another way, I personally feel that no simulationist element is better than a bad simulationist element.

I personally feel that it's lazy for a game designer to just throw away problematic mechanics rather than fix them.

The gamist analogy would probably be class balance. It'd be better to not have a class system at all than to have imbalanced classes, if indeed we want balanced classes.

As such, "we need to improve our simulationist rules" does not lead to, "Let's get rid of simulationist elements in the game". What led to that was, "Let's put a heavier emphasis on story and smooth mechanics than the last version, at the cost of a more vibrant environment."

Aquillion
2008-03-06, 03:19 PM
Maybe you want. It's perfectly fine, however some of us prefer their characters to be a part of detailed world instead of the world being grey, dull background to the players who kick in doors and slay monsters. We want our enemies to be more than bags of XP and plot hooks conveniently placed for players. I want my NPCs to seem like living people who will be there when PCs are long gone or even dead. When I DM, I'd like to have some help when I have to answer players who ask the bartender about the news from the wide world. The game revolves around PCs. The world shouldn't.One extremely important thing you have to understand: Detail is a limited resource. That is, every minute the DM spends tracking and determining the exact lore roll of that NPC loremaster at every level is a minute he isn't spending on things like, say, coming up with a background for the loremaster, or thinking about his personality.

You are equating stats with detail, and that is stupid. Stats are a mechanical crutch used to ensure that things that the PCs interact with behave in ways that they can roughly predict, and to give the PCs a framework to design their characters mechanically without just having everything they do come down to DM fiat.

That is all mechanics are good for. They serve no other purpose and add absolutely nothing else to the game world. A DM who insists on using detailed, PC-like statistics for things that are unrelated or only tangentally-related to the PCs is not only being pointlessly obsessive-compulsive, but wasting time that they could have been spending making a more detailed and believable game world (which, yes, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not that loremaster actually makes a lore roll!)

If you want a detailed game world, you shouldn't be obsessing over whether or not that orc gets to roll for stabilization; you should be thinking about why it's there in the first place, what it's doing there, what interesting things it's carrying (not just treasure, but things that might give insight into what it is, etc).

Your focus on using PC stats for NPCs takes up time that should have been spent on that, and turns them into meaningless bags of stats instead of real characters. If you devote the time to describing your characters well and work them believably into your game world, the PCs aren't going to care about the mechanics for them you're running behind your DM screen.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 03:24 PM
I personally feel that it's lazy for a game designer to just throw away problematic mechanics rather than fix them.

Ah, whereas I think it's stupid for a game designer to waste time and energy trying to fix bad mechanics that wouldn't be much use even if they did work.

You simply don't *need* game mechanics for things working more-or-less like they do in the real world. The absolute best case scenario is that you get something like the Object Toughness rules, which are just about usable if you want to work out how long it takes you to hack down a door with a sword, but have a big honking disclaimer saying "The DM should ignore these rules when they get stupid" and get game breaking the moment your players get an adamantine dagger and decide to start tunneling around dungeons.

The Object Toughness rules, in fact, are an excellent example of gamist rules which fail dismally when you attempt to use them as simulation. The Object Toughness rules are a good way to adjudicate how long it takes you to hack your way through something using wholly inappropriate tools. They're completely rubbish at telling you how you would actually go about doing something if it was part of your job.


The gamist analogy would probably be class balance. It'd be better to not have a class system at all than to have imbalanced classes, if indeed we want balanced classes.

And actually I'd agree. Which is why, incidentally, I prefer games that (whisper it) don't have class systems. On the other hand if you are going to have classes, you should try to make them balanced.


As such, "we need to improve our simulationist rules" does not lead to, "Let's get rid of simulationist elements in the game". What led to that was, "Let's put a heavier emphasis on story and smooth mechanics than the last version, at the cost of a more vibrant environment."

How exactly do the Object Damage rules make for a "vibrant environment"?

I suppose a world where people dig for gold with greatswords and chop down trees with Longspears looks pretty quirky, but I would call it "vibrant". I certainly don't see the "vibrancy" implicit in people's grid-based movement following a slightly less bad version of real geometry than the present.

Mike_G
2008-03-06, 03:26 PM
One extremely important thing you have to understand: Detail is a limited resource. That is, every minute the DM spends tracking and determining the exact lore roll of that NPC loremaster at every level is a minute he isn't spending on things like, say, coming up with a background for the loremaster, or thinking about his personality.


Your focus on using PC stats for NPCs takes up time that should have been spent on that, and turns them into meaningless bags of stats instead of real characters. If you devote the time to describing your characters well and work them believably into your game world, the PCs aren't going to care about the mechanics for them you're running behind your DM screen.

Exactly my point.

Just better delivered, and without the snark.

Morty
2008-03-06, 03:28 PM
One extremely important thing you have to understand: Detail is a limited resource. That is, every minute the DM spends tracking and determining the exact lore roll of that NPC loremaster at every level is a minute he isn't spending on things like, say, coming up with a background for the loremaster, or thinking about his personality.

And where, praytell, do you gather that I'm suggesting keeping track of every NPCs exact stat?


That is all mechanics are good for. They serve no other purpose and add absolutely nothing else to the game world. A DM who insists on using detailed, PC-like statistics for things that are unrelated or only tangentally-related to the PCs is not only being pointlessly obsessive-compulsive, but wasting time that they could have been spending making a more detailed and believable game world (which, yes, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not that loremaster actually makes a lore roll!)

See above. You seem to be under the impression that people who prefer less PC-focued gameworlds are in favor of painstakingly keeping track of statistics and that's their only postulate.


If you want a detailed game world, you shouldn't be obsessing over whether or not that orc gets to roll for stabilization; you should be thinking about why it's there in the first place, what it's doing there, what interesting things it's carrying (not just treasure, but things that might give insight into what it is, etc).

Rolling stabilization for enemies isn't "obsessing". It's a small part making of sure PCs fit into the world and everything looks natural.


Your focus on using PC stats for NPCs takes up time that should have been spent on that, and turns them into meaningless bags of stats instead of real characters. If you devote the time to describing your characters well and work them believably into your game world, the PCs aren't going to care about the mechanics for them you're running behind your DM screen.

Is there any particular reason you assumed all my arguments are in favor of NPCs using detailed PC-like statistics and nothing else? I know it made a nice argument, but apart from that.
My entire point is that there are people who don't like NPCs to be meaningless mooks to be used by PCs in a certain way and then forgotten. And who don't like world revolving around what players want and what's dramatically appropriate. As a response to Mike G's post, which basically dismissed them as nitpicky and playing D&D in a Wrong Way. It's not about detail, it's about belivability and immersion.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 03:31 PM
Your focus on using PC stats for NPCs takes up time that should have been spent on that, and turns them into meaningless bags of stats instead of real characters. If you devote the time to describing your characters well and work them believably into your game world, the PCs aren't going to care about the mechanics for them you're running behind your DM screen.

I think you might be expressing this a bit harshly (although no more so than the post to which you're replying, which in turn was probably replying to something equally harshly worded) but this is basically my position on the whole issue.

Ultimately, this is a difference in taste and style. Some people will feel that having to assign (say) a Charisma stat to an NPC makes them ask all sorts of questions they would not otherwise have asked about how that NPC interacts with others, who his friends are and how he treats them, and ultimately what he wants out of social interaction in particular, and life in general.

Other people will already know all that stuff about an NPC, and will find having to reduce the complex nuances of a character's personality to a single stat to be meaningless and reductive.

And of course, both people will tend to view the other as a mindless hack and slasher.

nagora
2008-03-06, 03:45 PM
While your logic makes sense, the presence of solid rules helps the building of a consistent scenery.
You can't simply "DM fiat" everything, unless you are a very skilled and experienced DM. You maybe are forgetting the newbye point of view. It is true that i, or you, or a 90% of the readers of this forum, don't need to be told, for instance, the percentage of 5th level blacksmith in the town, but it helps.

The percentage of 5th level blacksmiths in town: 0%. Giving background NPCs levels was a design blunder predicated on the idea that DM's are all as incompetent as Skip Williams and can't simply pick one or two important people and flesh them out as/if needed. Worst of all, when you treat people that way then they do become incompetent DMs scared of improvisation and scared of using DM's fiat - which is the core skill of a DM. If you use it and are bad at it you can get better, but if you never ever use it you will always be crap.

The PC's are the focus of the game and the world; at least 98% of everyone else should be zero-level. The DM does NOT need the hassle of working unimportant characters in any detail beyond what they say and do in their roles as the "normal folk" trying to get on with normal lives.

Hit points (1d6), occupation, any attribute of note (Cha, Phy, green skin, one leg, whatever). That's all a blacksmith or a baker or a cartwright or whatever needs. It's certainly all the DM needs to worry about!

Similarly, we don't need to know what the skill level of that blacksmith or whatever is - either it's good enough to do whatever it is the players want him to do or the DM has some reason to say he's not. NPCs abilities to help the PCs, or need for help from the PCs is a plot device and should be decided upon on the fly by the DM.

Seriously, most of these mechanics are worse than useless. Not only do they not actually give reasonable results, but they limit players and DMs alike into thinking about rules when they should be thinking about character and plot.

Bugger; I'm preaching 1ed to the 3.5+ed choir again. Must stop doing that.

Indon
2008-03-06, 03:55 PM
Ah, whereas I think it's stupid for a game designer to waste time and energy trying to fix bad mechanics that wouldn't be much use even if they did work.

They're of plenty of use in my games. Logistics questions such as "we need to move X amount of junk" come up, as do, "How long will it take to march X distance?", and let's not even get into, say, if the PC's decide to build and take command of some sort of army.



How exactly do the Object Damage rules make for a "vibrant environment"?

My point earlier was that a bad rule should be replaced with a good rule, not removed. That way, you end up with a good system, rather than no system.

Mike_G
2008-03-06, 03:57 PM
Rolling stabilization for enemies isn't "obsessing". It's a small part making of sure PCs fit into the world and everything looks natural.



My entire point is that there are people who don't like NPCs to be meaningless mooks to be used by PCs in a certain way and then forgotten. And who don't like world revolving around what players want and what's dramatically appropriate. As a response to Mike G's post, which basically dismissed them as nitpicky and playing D&D in a Wrong Way. It's not about detail, it's about belivability and immersion.

Ok, an example of believability and "mooks die on a hit" rules versus tracking everything alike for PCs and NPCs.

If the PCs are holding off the Banzai charge at Bloody Ridge on Guadalcanal, to use a real world example, Bob the 4th level Marine shoots a charging Japanese 1st level warrior for enough damage to take him to zero. Bob doesn't care if the charging Japanese is dead, or wounded or at 0 HP or -5 or -50. He cares that the enemy stopped charging at him with a fixed bayonet and a cry of Banzai on his lips, clutched his chest and fell over. The "mook" is out of the fight. He may have been killed outright, he may bleed out, he may stabilize and recover.

Now, keep in mind that this is being repeated dozens of times across the PC squad's zone of control. Making a dozen rolls and tracking them during an exciting, outnumbered, fight to the death tooth and nail battle will slow stuff down, for no real good reason.

Now, if, when dawn breaks and the surviving enemy retreat, Bob decides to go search the bodies, a reasonable DM might roll, say 10% for each "dead" enemy to be alive and possibly act, say, detonating a greande to die gloriously for the Emperor, taking a hated Gaijin with him.

This achieves a feeling of verisimilitude without the DM needing to track the dozens of NPC casualties.

A PC who is dropped should use stabilization rules, since it matters to the player if he dies before Joe the Corpsman can get to him and patch him up.

Different rules for PCs and NPCs, but no loss, IMO of a feeling of realism or a vibrant world.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 04:01 PM
They're of plenty of use in my games. Logistics questions such as "we need to move X amount of junk" come up, as do, "How long will it take to march X distance?", and let's not even get into, say, if the PC's decide to build and take command of some sort of army.


Seriously, though, how do the existing rules help with that at all?

fendrin
2008-03-06, 04:16 PM
See above. You seem to be under the impression that people who prefer less PC-focued gameworlds are in favor of painstakingly keeping track of statistics and that's their only postulate.

gameworlds? I thought we already killed that beast of a misinterpretation.

PC-focussed games, not PC-focussed gameworlds

see the difference?

Indon
2008-03-06, 04:16 PM
Seriously, though, how do the existing rules help with that at all?

The section on equipment and services isn't entirely worthless, and marching is outlined in the adventuring chapter of the PHB.

Mike_G
2008-03-06, 04:22 PM
They're of plenty of use in my games. Logistics questions such as "we need to move X amount of junk" come up, as do, "How long will it take to march X distance?", and let's not even get into, say, if the PC's decide to build and take command of some sort of army.




But, see, that's useful for adjudicating the PC's trying to do something.

I seriously don't think you need those rules or use them for any given merchant ship completely devoid of PC's or campaign related stuff.

Farmer42
2008-03-06, 04:35 PM
If you have a ship that needs to get somewhere or have something happen to it, in x amount of time, it will. I don't need a chart to tell me that a ship can take weeks to get around the tip of the continent and risks getting lost at sea. That's arbitrary, and a waste of my time. If I want the ship to get somewhere, I make it get there, risks be damned. It might be down a few crewmen and short on extra rigging and sail material because they pushed it, but it gets there. If it needs to. Otherwise, which is more dramatically appropriate? Where the PCs really hoping to get something off of that particular merchantman, and if so, did they really need it? And is this the only way to get it, or can I add an interesting subplot with the local smugglers' guild? I might roll a die, but I'm not rolling against a table. And to think that I learned how to do this without being coddled by an arbitrarily rules heavy DMG. I don't even own the DMG. When I need items, I borrow one or look it up on the SRD.

TheThan
2008-03-06, 05:00 PM
*sigh*

I guess I really am the only one who thinks more rules and information for your dollar is better, even if you aren't going to use most of it.

No you're not the only one. Though our numbers have dwindled greatly. Alas we lonely few, destined to eventually go the way of the dinosaur. (good thing they're trying to clone them huh).

fendrin
2008-03-06, 05:16 PM
No you're not the only one. Though our numbers have dwindled greatly. Alas we lonely few, destined to eventually go the way of the dinosaur. (good thing they're trying to clone them huh).

I prefer quality over quantity, and like higher levels of abstraction over lower. To a point.

But I mean seriously, weapon weights? You mean that all longswords are made exactly the same?

Seriously, that kind of detail when you abstract all humans to run at the same speed just seems... bizarre to me.

I mean, I have to houserule one of the most mythic sports ever! Not that wrestling was much better, but still...

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 05:19 PM
I mean, I have to houserule one of the most mythic sports ever! Not that wrestling was much better, but still...

What, you mean the discus?

Farmer42
2008-03-06, 05:23 PM
No, I do believe he's referring to curling. I demand rules for curling in 4E! A world without curling just ruins verisimilitude for me.

AKA_Bait
2008-03-06, 05:25 PM
I prefer quality over quantity

I've avoided biting on a few of these type comments now but I figure I should make this bit clear:

No one wants crappy content.

Not all simulationist content is silly or of poor quality. You can have both quality and simulationist mechanics in one product. You can have one or the other. You can have neither. They are, in fact, unrelated.

Just because D&D has had flawed mechanics in the past (and still does in the present) and 3.5 is somewhat rules heavy does not mean there is any logical connection bettween being rules heavy and having bad rules. Please stop arguing that there is.

If you want to argue that WotC was well served to cut back on the simulationism because they, as a company, are incapable of making a rules heavy game without the rules being flawed that is a diffrent argument.

fendrin
2008-03-06, 05:36 PM
What, you mean the discus?

That too, but I meant a sport even more mythic: the foot race.

In core 3e rules, for short races Improved Initiative is a better feat than Run!

I'm thinking something like the 100m dash, using the rough estimate of 1m = 3.3 ft, so a 100m dash is ~330ft, which will be covered in 3 rounds regardless of the Run feat. That means that it all comes down to initiative.

Assuming you are treating the race as a combat anyway, which doesn't really make sense.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 05:38 PM
I've avoided biting on a few of these type comments now but I figure I should make this bit clear:

No one wants crappy content.


That did, in fact, need clarifying.

It sounded a lot like you were saying, not that you explicitly wanted crappy content, but that you'd rather have content (crappy or otherwise) than not. Better have the option and ignore it than to not have the option, as it were.

If I'm misrepresenting you I apologize, that's just the impression I've got from your posts.

Of course there's no correlation between being rules heavy and having bad rules, but the more rules you have, the more chance there is of one of them being a bit rubbish, and the more things you try to provide rules for the more chance there is of one of those things being poorly represented.

Ultimately, this just a matter of personal taste. Everybody draws the "better than nothing" line in a different place. I, for example, just plain dislike encumbrance rules. I don't find them useful or interesting, so I don't like them taking up space in games (the only exception to this being the rules in Dark Continent, where you're actually supposed to be planning an expedition in Africa, and need to make sure you hire enough bearers).

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-06, 05:41 PM
That too, but I meant a sport even more mythic: the foot race.

In core 3e rules, for short races Improved Initiative is a better feat than Run!

I'm thinking something like the 100m dash, using the rough estimate of 1m = 3.3 ft, so a 100m dash is ~330ft, which will be covered in 3 rounds regardless of the Run feat. That means that it all comes down to initiative.

Assuming you are treating the race as a combat anyway, which doesn't really make sense.

I'm not sure it'd come down to initiative actually, since actions in combat are technically supposed to take place simultaneously.

Relay races, of course, are great fun in that regard, you do the entire thing in one round...

fendrin
2008-03-06, 05:44 PM
I've avoided biting on a few of these type comments now but I figure I should make this bit clear:

No one wants crappy content.

Not all simulationist content is silly or of poor quality. You can have both quality and simulationist mechanics in one product. You can have one or the other. You can have neither. They are, in fact, unrelated.

Just because D&D has had flawed mechanics in the past (and still does in the present) and 3.5 is somewhat rules heavy does not mean there is any logical connection bettween being rules heavy and having bad rules. Please stop arguing that there is.

If you want to argue that WotC was well served to cut back on the simulationism because they, as a company, are incapable of making a rules heavy game without the rules being flawed that is a diffrent argument.

It's a matter of design and editing time. There is a deadline on the product, and the designers/editors can only work X many hours. There can only Y many designers/editors working on the product before it becomes unprofitable and thus dead before it is published.

Therefore, you have a finite amount of 'work' that can be performed. With that work you can create new rules or refine existing ones. New rules are generally not polished well enough to make a good product, so they require refinement before being 'quality'.

The result is that you can only have a certain number of quality rules. Any additional rules will not be quality. Thus at a certain point you have to chose between quantity and quality. I choose quality.

Mike_G
2008-03-06, 06:33 PM
I don't really want that either, but there are other ways to fix it without the need to abandon a unified system. Like... say... lifting the skill caps.






Here's where I really think PC's and NPC's need to work differently.

Let's take my librarian. He's old. He's never been in a fight in his life, or spent a day on the practice field learning how to fight. He spends his days doing research, catalogueing and reading rare books on esoteric subjects in the biggest, most comprehensive library on the continent. This is the guy PC's go to when they need answers to ancient riddles, or help deciphering dead languages. He charges for info and spends his money hiring adventureers to go get obscure, rare, possibly legendary books.

Now, if he uses the same rules as the PC's, in order for me to give him a whole bunch of ranks in Knowledge, which he needs to have for the PC's to need to consult him, if he only had 10 ranks they'd be able to do that themselves, he needs to be high level. Which means he has a bunch of HD, BAB etc.

Or, if I eliminate skill caps, and let him be a 1st level Expert with 4 HP but 20 ranks in Knowledge: Arcane, why can't the party Rogue have 20 ranks in Open Locks at 1st level?

The third option, which I like, is to let PC's and NPCs work differently, and just rule that the guy has 4 HP and 20 ranks in the skill, since it makes sense.

The rules are designed to simulate PC's on a quest. Adventurers will advance in combat, saves and skills a bit outside their specialty, just by virtue of the challenges they face. A farmer may very well not get better at fighting as he masters farming. The Wizard's BAB goes up because he's been in combat, even if it's not his main focus, he's seen fighting, he's probably used his Touch attack. Skill Level limits really are sueful since a 1st level Human Rogue with an INT bonus will have 40+ points, and if he specializes, can defeat traps, locks and so on, far beyond what is appropriate for a 1st level adventure.

The rule are OK for simulating what adventurers do. they are not very good at simulating what blacksmiths, sages, farmers, etc, do.

an kobold
2008-03-06, 06:42 PM
My entire point is that there are people who don't like NPCs to be meaningless mooks to be used by PCs in a certain way and then forgotten. And who don't like world revolving around what players want and what's dramatically appropriate. As a response to Mike G's post, which basically dismissed them as nitpicky and playing D&D in a Wrong Way. It's not about detail, it's about belivability and immersion.

Rules or no rules aside, whenever I dm my group at home I view it as my job to make NPCs memorable characters instead of meaningless mooks. I give them vivid descriptions, appropriate names, and behavioral quirks, not the books. It's my decision and description, not the books, to have a mining colony, as those seem to be rather popular in this thread, strike a vein of gold since the PCs last visited and thus been transformed from a sleepy little collection of prospectors to a lively den of tomfoolery and what not. I feel that the move away from having NPCs follow PC rules and concrete rules for world creation is giving me more freedom as a DM to create a living, immersing world with memorable NPCs, not the opposite. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that rules aren't necessary for believability and immersion, they just are not the only ingredient to it.
And I get your point that you'd like some help, I might be wrong but I'm assuming you mean from official WotC sources, when players are asking news about the outside world. Hopefully the DMG will have some info about larger cities or sections in the points of light setting. And while we might have to wait a while, when the different setting handbooks for FR and Ebr come out, they'll definitely have the info.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-03-06, 07:00 PM
The problem here is that every time someone comes out in favor of simulationism, the narrativists think of FATAL. A game where the rules are the most important thing, every interaction has a dice roll, and the PCs are dirt farmers because they rolled a 1-80 on their profession stat. Whereas every time the narrativists start talking, I picture DMotR, the world existing solely because the PCs are there and nothing happening that doesn't revolve around them, essentially a D&D version of Eragon. The best balance is of course somewhere in the middle, and it's different for every person.

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 07:10 PM
For the love of god. This has gone from an interesting debate of opposing sides to a descent into the pits of mad pettyness, flaming, and refusal to see other viewpoints. And it was funny for a while, but it's lousy now. Can we switch to something different now? Or at least have every debater switch sides and try to dfend the opposing viewpoint?

Ok, that would just be awesome, can we get a thread for that?



I've played D&D since 1980. Red box, AD&D, all the way to 3.5. I know my geeks and nerds well enough to expect the semi rational hate for anything new that may taint their gaming experience. But one complaint is just silly and needs to be addressed by this old grognard.

Just to put this out there, my complaint isn't against change itself, i argued for a new edition, i just don't like where 4E is going


One thing I've noted about the pro/con 4th ed discussion has been some people's visceral negative reaction to the concept that "the world revolves around the PCs."

Well, that's both a very extreme reading of intent, and not really a change at all.

The world doesn't necessarily revolve around the PCs, but the game does. It always has.
that is the thing however, the rules are shifting to make the PCs the center of the world, not just the game. The claims isn't that hte game shouldn't focus on the PCs, that is a misinterpretation, it is that the world shouldn't. Part of being level one is that you aren't special super special awesome heros yet, you are talented and rather eccentric, but you certainly aren't in the upper levels of the world yet, not legendary one of a kind people blessed with super powers. As time goes on, they gain powers, experience, and abilities and become heros, but they aren't legends from the get-go. in 4E, half a dozen guys are gifted with the super powers that make them simply better than everybody else for no reason. In Exalted i think there is a reason for the PCs super powers, so at least there is a justification (god's favor or something) but 4E doesn't do that and makes the PCs super epic dudes from the get go. THey are expected to replace gods normally, and they are the only ones who can do this apparently. What i don't like the way that 4E assumes that the would should exist simply to act as a game for the PCs, a game world should still work logically. This kinda goes with the whole video game thing (see below)



Streamlined rules for NPCs isn't something that we should call the ACLU about and form an NPC rights group. It's something that has been part of RPGs since the beginning. Prior to 3.0, mosters were stated differently form PCs. In AD&D, you had no Dex score for the Orc. You had his attack bonus, AC, HP and damage, one assumed that abilities were already figured it. In the original 1st ed, ogres and even dragons got no Str bonus to damage, they just rolled more or bigger dice, so it's not WoW, it's Olde Schoole D&D to make monsters easier to stat.

I like that 3e did give the ability scores for all monsters. Somethimes you want to know if the Orc is stronger that the fighter, when trying to force a door open/hold it closed or whatever. And it's nice that a Giant gets a damage bonus, like a player with a Girdle of Giant Strength (yes, In 1e, real men wore Girdles.)
1. It is more about verisimilitude, not NPC rights
2. That basically is simplifying it, if they are going back to that. I liked that, it gave a reason for the races powers



The point remains that using shorthand for NPCs is not "dumbing it down" or "playing an MMORPG." It's a return to an old idea.

Personally i feel 4E is becoming more like video gams in general, not MMO specifically. WOTC is most likely aiming for WoW people but i don't think MMO specifically are the blame


The other point, about monsters being dead at 0 hp but not PCs, well that's pretty much gaming. I've never, ever kept track of negative HP for the hordes of foes the PCs vanquish. Maybe the important enemy leader, or NPC important to the story, but Goblin Archer #4 has his stat block crossed out and his figure knocked over when he takes damage more than his hp. Nobody rolls stabilization for him. He's a Stormtrooper, an extra in the movie. Extras who get solidly hit are dead. Sometimes, the named enemy with a grudge against the hero survives and comes back, thirty seconds before the credits roll, bloody but still a threat, to provide a last jolt of fear, but not Red Shirt minions. Important NPCs have consistently had class levels, anyway.

That is the thing however, i don't think this is a good way to run a game. I've always been of the option that while they may act like cannon fodder, they aren't inherently lesser than the PCs because they lack names, simply because they are a lot lower level. I don't like the idea that rules work differently for two different people, and i think enemies existing simply to serve as cannon fodder is rather video game way of handling things. most low level foes who are reduced to negative hit points (the rare ones who won't go down from the final blow) will die anyways normally due to bleeding, however i still think they should be like the PCs in the sense that they also can be healed back to health should their masters (or the PCs) wished it


And the world beyond the party needs no mechanics at all. I don't need to roll for diplomacy or magic item creation by important kings and mages half a continent away. If I say it happens, it happens, Adhering to the rules creates metagame knowledge for the players who start getting all "CSI" on the DM, saying "This sword required a Craft DC of 32, and knowledge of 6th level spells, so we're dealing with at least an 11th level Wizard," which is more immersion breaking than any stripped down "mooks die when hit" rule could ever be.

Why have rules then? If we aren't going to abide by them, why bother with rules? Lets simply just not bother. You assume that the Characters will refer to the sword in such terms, but it is totally reasonable for them to say "That sword couldn't have been made by such a weak wizard" or "A powerful wizard who can cast spell X must be around" If you have rules, lets make them consistent



The part of the rules that matters is the part that determines how the PCs interact with the NPCs, which is often violently. Stuff beyond eye and ear shot of the PCs can and should be resolved by DM fiat.

Yet again, a consistent logical world would still work outside the PCs. Other wise the world would be static (yes, like a video game). You can still run around killing stuff and be heros, but it very inconsistent to assume the world revolves around half a dozen dudes who haven't done anything special (when the game starts that is)



No, you are completely wrong.

Look, here is a completely false strawman arguement that PROVES you are wrong and a troll:

Orcs eat cabbage - cabbage has to come from somewhere - the universe CANNOT revolve around the PCs!!1111

Everyone knows that the entire universe revolves around a 5th level Kobold Sorcerer living on Toril.
Mr. Friendly, you try to protest trolls and strawman arguments, by using trolling and strawman arguments. Hypocrite is an understatement.

(I kid, I kid.. I agree with you... but fanatics, trolls and loons will be here soon to explain why you are soooooooo wrong....)
Just like fanatical trolls and loons who attack and criticism, before it even arrives. If you have something to say, back it up, don't simply use a double standard


sigh*

I guess I really am the only one who thinks more rules and information for your dollar is better, even if you aren't going to use most of it.


I could go with that


Knowing that the King of Unterland sacrifices 1d6 x 1d10 kittens per week on his alter to Hextor is amusing for the DM to read, but really has no practical value and could be surmised with "The King also sacrifices animals" tacked on to the end of a nother sentence.
Strawman argument, as that isn't hte complaint at hand



If the rule is, for example, to calculate how many demons and devils are killed per day during the Blood War, is that *REALLY* a needed paragraph or two that could be occupied with rules for hiring a henchman, or for that matter even a table indicating the Princess' bra size by level guidelines?
1. Plot hook
2. It explains what Demons and Devils are doing the whole time
3. If it is around, then we should have detail



Isn't it simpler though to simply, y'know, DM it and say "well, there are basically infinite forces on both sides and the Blood War will go on as long as I want it to. If the PCs show up I will plan an appropriately challenging encounter and not worry about whether or not one of them happens to the secretary to the undergeneral of larva production for the 2nd layer of Hell, of if he is, I will write that in and make it my own"
1. And the DM learn this through mental communication i take it?
2. And if the PCs go to hell anyways, and don't stick to a rail roaded plot?


Nicely done, Mort. It takes real style to make cinematically inclined people look like hack-n-slash obsessed dolts. Real classy.
No less than making consistency people look like powergamers



I don't need or want rules for NPCs that make it necessary for the curator of the Great Library of Ecnarwal to be a 20th level expert, because then when the barbarian hordes torch his library and toss him out of a window in the tallest tower, he bounces when he hits the ground because of his 20d6 HP, dusts himself off, then uses his BAB of +15 to mop the floor with a bunch of the invading 1st level Warriors. I don't want the players to say "Hey, that guy must be 10 level if he created that sword." If the Frensean ambassador's daughter seduces the Crown Prince of Kerthor so that his army will come to her nation's aid against the invasion of the Thytan Empire, I don't think she needs a PC class to do that, she just needs to be pretty and good in the sack, and we certainly don't need rules for that, or feats like No Gag Reflex, or SLAs like Can Breathe Through Ears.

I want to handwave that stuff, and not give the impression that I've violated rules to do it.
1. Then don't make him a 20 level expert
2. Or, have the orcs kill him then throw out the window, he'd fight for his books
3. Seduction has not rules (thankfully) so you don't really need to make a check there, just say she convince him, it is basically a business arraignment.
4. You seem to be confusing people who want verisimilitude for people who want are meta gamers. Personally i feel that having an attitude that dictates the PCs being super simply because they happen to be played by real people is far more in that direction


But that's what it is... laziness. If you want the simulation handed to you buy the campaign source books or the books directly related to that aspect of the simulation.
Laziness seems more on ignoring the logic of the world and not bothering to try to have the world make sense


I agree with all of those save for the diagonal movement and uniform system, because most of those are systems needed to make the game function. NPCs are not as important as PCs. That's what make them PCs. The diagonal movement rule was just clumsy and inaccurate, because if you just move ONE square diagonally, it takes less effort than 2. One square is only five feet but two is fifteen. That's unrealistic.
Don't care about diagonal, but why aren't they as important in terms of the world? In terms of game no, but they still effect the world. Making the PCs have PC only powers isn't a good in game reason


Yes, but the 4.0 system is even worse. Did Wizard's entire staff flunk geometry?
well we've seen that none of them had a Perotic Table of Elements it seems :smallwink:


I don't really want that either, but there are other ways to fix it without the need to abandon a unified system. Like... say... lifting the skill caps.

To build off this, fixing the problems that 3E had is far better than making more


Why are you complaining about a system no longer supporting your intent? It's not like I went around whining about DnD before. I just /didn't care/ and mostly ignored it.
Call it expressing an option.



Uh...this one is in 4e. If the DM wants an NPC to use the same rules as a PC, he (quite shockingly!) has an NPC use the same rules as a PC. The info they've given us even tells us to do so if the situation warrents.
Not as default, and only in a drama sense. Also even if NPCs get classes, they are always (instead of mostly) inferior and different from 4E


Hush you! Don't ruin a perfectly good flamewar with your "reason" and "rationality". If they want to keep fighting windmills giants, let them.
nice use of a total strawman argument there


You see, all of these are rules I think make the game world look creaky and fake.

The most obvious example here are the Object Toughness rules, which pretty much mandate the DM to ignore the rules in order to account for any tool being able to do the job for which it was actually designed. The classic example here is that Stone has Hardness 8, and a Pick does 1d8 damage. Now fair enough, that means that with a positive Strength bonus you can smash stone with a pick, but a Greataxe winds up being more effective, and an Adamantine Dagger (or, for that matter, Adamantine Wiffle Bat) is better than either of them.

The Encumbrance rules are similarly ludicrous. Most non-D&D GMs would start saying "You're carrying how much?!" long before a character with a decent Strength score started taking any kind of game mechanical penalty in D&D.

As for the diagonal movement thing, doesn't the fact that your character is walking on a square grid already pretty much wreck any sense of realism? Real people aren't restricted to moving along compass points.

Then there's all the economy "simulation" that goes on. Item prices, GP limit by city size, Craft and Profession GP awards, the list goes on. We're talking about a "simulation" where an iron pot is worth less than the iron it's made of, where no two trades are differently lucrative and of course where the amount of money you make at a job isn't changed by season, local conditions, competition, war, or famine.

To put it another way, in a game with no "simulationist" rules, the players might arrive at a town, and I might describe it like this:

"Daggermere is a quiet mining town, as you pass through their poorly-defended gates, you see stocky, muddied miners resting their picks against a wall as they load all of the ore they have mined onto a wagon to be taken into the city and sold to the skilled smiths of Erastown."

Win a game with simulationist rules, the description goes more or less like this:

"Daggermere is a quiet mining town, as you pass through their poorly defended gates, you see slender, intelligent looking miners resting their greatswords on the floor, as they quaff the copious quantities of ale they have purchased with the money that they automatically acquire every time they make a Profession: Mining skill check. One of them gets up and tries to walk to the bar, but finds he cannot reach it, because it is not an exact multiple of five feet from his present position."

To put it another way, I personally feel that no simulationist element is better than a bad simulationist element.


All of those problems come from a badly done simulation, not simulation on their own. You just need better rules.


One extremely important thing you have to understand: Detail is a limited resource. That is, every minute the DM spends tracking and determining the exact lore roll of that NPC loremaster at every level is a minute he isn't spending on things like, say, coming up with a background for the loremaster, or thinking about his personality.

YOU assume that you can't do both

from
EE

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 07:13 PM
The problem here is that every time someone comes out in favor of simulationism, the narrativists think of FATAL. A game where the rules are the most important thing, every interaction has a dice roll, and the PCs are dirt farmers because they rolled a 1-80 on their profession stat. Whereas every time the narrativists start talking, I picture DMotR, the world existing solely because the PCs are there and nothing happening that doesn't revolve around them, essentially a D&D version of Eragon. The best balance is of course somewhere in the middle, and it's different for every person.

ok, never compare anyone on ether side to Fatal, just don't please. that game is awful in more ways than one can imagine
from
EE

Neon Knight
2008-03-06, 07:30 PM
The problem here is that every time someone comes out in favor of simulationism, the narrativists think of FATAL. A game where the rules are the most important thing, every interaction has a dice roll, and the PCs are dirt farmers because they rolled a 1-80 on their profession stat. Whereas every time the narrativists start talking, I picture DMotR, the world existing solely because the PCs are there and nothing happening that doesn't revolve around them, essentially a D&D version of Eragon. The best balance is of course somewhere in the middle, and it's different for every person.

What? :smallconfused:

The defining point of FATAL is its dysfunctional attitude towards women, sex, bodily functions, and common sense and decency. I doubt any narrativist thinks of simulationists so poorly that they attribute that level of depravity to them. Narrativists (at least me) think of Rolemaster, or some similarly rules heavy game.

And DM of the Rings isn't narrativist in the slightest. Its the story of madly in love with the backstory he wrote to the point of railroading his PCs to the point of making scenes non-interactive and NPCs non-responsive to the actions of the PCs. And the PCs are kick in the door types hungry for loot and XP.

The extreme of narrativists is more accurately (at least in my opinion) described as free-form. We want the game more abstract so that it doesn't detract or interfere with the story, and so that it can be modeled to conform with the demands of the story. It is nothing more than a task-resolution system or perhaps a random occurrences generator. Simulationists treat the system like its the physics of a world. We think of the system as a meta-game only entity.

Obviously, I speak only for myself, and not for all narrativists, but I feel I am fairly close to your average narrativist in terms of viewpoint. I can't state that with 100% certainty, but I feel I'm pretty close. Right? Any other narrativists wanna tell me if I'm close?

an kobold
2008-03-06, 07:36 PM
The extreme of narrativists is more accurately (at least in my opinion) described as free-form. We want the game more abstract so that it doesn't detract or interfere with the story, and so that it can be modeled to conform with the demands of the story. It is nothing more than a task-resolution system or perhaps a random occurrences generator. Simulationists treat the system like its the physics of a world. We think of the system as a meta-game only entity.

Obviously, I speak only for myself, and not for all narrativists, but I feel I am fairly close to your average narrativist in terms of viewpoint. I can't state that with 100% certainty, but I feel I'm pretty close. Right? Any other narrativists wanna tell me if I'm close?


You pretty much hit the nail on the head for me.

Ralfarius
2008-03-06, 07:37 PM
This thread has just been EE'd. Probably best we pack it up and head to more hospitable climates.

In more productive posting, I also think that the gaming session has always revolved around the PC's. The wording that has been used (The world) is probably misrepresenting the actual stance of the developers on 4e, but I still have to wait to see if they just need to hire better people to relay info to the public.

horseboy
2008-03-06, 07:45 PM
That too, but I meant a sport even more mythic: the foot race.

In core 3e rules, for short races Improved Initiative is a better feat than Run!

I'm thinking something like the 100m dash, using the rough estimate of 1m = 3.3 ft, so a 100m dash is ~330ft, which will be covered in 3 rounds regardless of the Run feat. That means that it all comes down to initiative.

Assuming you are treating the race as a combat anyway, which doesn't really make sense.
Insert obligatory Man on Fire reference.

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 07:47 PM
This thread has just been EE'd. Probably best we pack it up and head to more hospitable climates.

So when i say something you all run away? Rather spineless eh?


Anyways, the thing with DMotR is that the world doesn't make sense and the players are basically gamist glory hogs
from
EE

Ralfarius
2008-03-06, 07:50 PM
So when i say something you all run away? Rather spineless eh?
Momma always taught me it's better to walk away from a brick wall than hurt your head, bangin' against it. :smallbiggrin:

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 07:51 PM
Momma always taught me it's better to walk away from a brick wall than hurt your head, bangin' against it. :smallbiggrin:

did she say anything about standing up for what you believe in?
from
EE

Charity
2008-03-06, 07:51 PM
That too, but I meant a sport even more mythic: the foot race.

In core 3e rules, for short races Improved Initiative is a better feat than Run!

I'm thinking something like the 100m dash, using the rough estimate of 1m = 3.3 ft, so a 100m dash is ~330ft, which will be covered in 3 rounds regardless of the Run feat. That means that it all comes down to initiative.

Assuming you are treating the race as a combat anyway, which doesn't really make sense.

As it goes it is arguably appropriate that initiative plays a major role in determining the winner of a short sprint, given how important it is to get a good start in the dash... sorry just had to say.

Possibly not the best example. :smallamused:

Edit - good grief the arrogance.

TheThan
2008-03-06, 08:00 PM
Some things the Dm can wave their hand for.

For instance in my campaign a legion of hobgoblins attacked a monastery of monks in order to steel a magical macguffin, I had a huge battle between the defenders of the macguffin and the hobgoblins. The hobgoblins won. I didn’t use any rolling or anything, I just decided it was going to happen.


But for other things it’s nice to have rules for. Like determining if the local blacksmith can buy the heroes (non-magical) loot off of them, or sell them with the magic items they want. Instead of just arbitrarily telling the PCs “NO” you have rules detailing why they can’t do certain things in town “X” but can in town “Y”.

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 08:01 PM
Some things the Dm can wave their hand for.

For instance in my campaign a legion of hobgoblins attacked a monastery of monks in order to steel a magical macguffin, I had a huge battle between the defenders of the macguffin and the hobgoblins. The hobgoblins won. I didn’t use any rolling or anything, I just decided it was going to happen.


But for other things it’s nice to have rules for. Like determining if the local blacksmith can buy the heroes (non-magical) loot off of them, or sell them with the magic items they want. Instead of just arbitrarily telling the PCs “NO” you have rules detailing why they can’t do certain things in town “X” but can in town “Y”.
I think you can have both actually
from
EE

Ralfarius
2008-03-06, 08:04 PM
did she say anything about standing up for what you believe in?
from
EE
Yeah! She said "Stand up for what you believe in... But sweet mercy, you're not going to prove anything on the internet, so just take it easy!"

I've lived by those words, rest her soul.

Neon Knight
2008-03-06, 08:09 PM
But for other things it’s nice to have rules for. Like determining if the local blacksmith can buy the heroes (non-magical) loot off of them, or sell them with the magic items they want. Instead of just arbitrarily telling the PCs “NO” you have rules detailing why they can’t do certain things in town “X” but can in town “Y”.

I don't see why you need rules for this at all. The decision isn't arbitrary at all if justified by logic such as: "He's a bloody village blacksmith. He repairs horseshoes most of the time. HORSESHOES! And you expect him to have weapons of powerful magic sitting in the back of his store? And I suppose Dennis the peasant over there is supposed to have diamonds in his cupboard?"

And when they get to town Y, you describe the blacksmith just finishing up the packing of a handcrafted suit of beautifully crafted, engraved, faintly glowing plate armor to the captain of the city guard or some other high ranking noble, and one of his assistants wearing robes and muttering as he studies a spellbook.

Context clues, people. Learn em and love em.

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 08:09 PM
Yeah! She said "Stand up for what you believe in... But sweet mercy, you're not going to prove anything on the internet, so just take it easy!"

I've lived by those words, rest her soul.

So instead of countering points your just going to leave? Well at least you honest about it and rather funny
from
EE

fendrin
2008-03-06, 08:31 PM
Once more into the breach... :smallannoyed:

EE,
In another thread you complemented my posting, and I listed out the things I try to do and not do. You may want to revisit that list and try to apply it to your own posts.


the rules are shifting to make the PCs the center of the world, not just the game.
Source, please. Back it up or give it up.


Yet again, a consistent logical world would still work outside the PCs. Other wise the world would be static (yes, like a video game). Fallacy. It is the DMs imagination that makes a world dynamic, regardless of whether or not the world is consistent to a set of rules. Rules neither promote nor prevent dynamic worlds.


1. Plot hook
2. It explains what Demons and Devils are doing the whole time
3. If it is around, then we should have detail
1. What plot hook? And Why doe sit need to be a rule to be a plot hook?
2 & 3. Such information can (and in my opinion should) come from the DMs imagination or campaign setting book, and does not need to be a rule.


1. And the DM learn this through mental communication i take it?
2. And if the PCs go to hell anyways, and don't stick to a rail roaded plot?
1. Yes; they learn it through mental communication with their imagination.
2. Then the DM makes it up! That's what the post was all about. If my characters go to hell, they will encounter a series of encounters, as difficult as I, the DM, decide they should be. Why would I roll a random encounter if I can make something up that would be more fun?



1. Then don't make him a 20 level expert
2. Or, have the orcs kill him then throw out the window, he'd fight for his books
1. if he's not a 20th level expert, he won't have the knowledge skills appropriate to his position. Therefore to be consistent, he must be level 20.
2. He's level 20! A few level 1 orc warriors are no match for his awesome combat prowess!


YOU assume that you can't do both
Unfortunately, DMs can't cast Time Stop in the real world.

Mike_G
2008-03-06, 08:39 PM
That is the thing however, i don't think this is a good way to run a game. I've always been of the option that while they may act like cannon fodder, they aren't inherently lesser than the PCs because they lack names, simply because they are a lot lower level. I don't like the idea that rules work differently for two different people, and i think enemies existing simply to serve as cannon fodder is rather video game way of handling things. most low level foes who are reduced to negative hit points (the rare ones who won't go down from the final blow) will die anyways normally due to bleeding, however i still think they should be like the PCs in the sense that they also can be healed back to health should their masters (or the PCs) wished it


They are inherently less important to the game than the PC's. Do you honestly feel that Kobold Scout# 2 is every bit as important as Grimban The Orphanmaker, Barbarian Priest of Hextor?

There is no feeling of immersion or verisimilitude gained by rolling stabilization on downed minions. 0 hp is "out of commission," and if the party searches the bodies or looks for wounded survivors to interrogate, the DM can wing a roll after the fact. If we have an Orc version of the Zulu War, where for very good reasons an Orc tribe goes on the warpath, and the PC's fight off countless droves of them to defend a supply depot, struggling in a last ditch defense by the light of the burning hospital (Orc's Drift, anyone?) Do we really need to know if the heaps of Orc casualties bleed out or not?

The Orc leaders, shamans, etc can be fleshed out. So can individual Orcs the PC's talk to, and they can have compelling motivations, personalities and reasons for fighting. But we don't need to labor over each spear carrier.



1. Then don't make him a 20 level expert


If I use the same rules as the PC's I have to, or I have to accept that he can only have Level +3 ranks in Knowledge:Arcane. If he's a 2nd level Expert, he can have a whopping 5 ranks, so why would a PC go to him for info?

If I make him 20th level to justify his skill ranks, he can beat up the 5th level Barbarian, which is just stupid.

I want an NPC with a well developed backstory and motivations, who happens to have 20 ranks in Know: Arcane, but only 4 Hp and a BAB of 0 to reflect his being a freaking librarian, who has never drawn a blade larger than a letter opener.

That is realism, immersion and verisimilitude better than the RAW, which make any College Dean, master carpenter, or architect able to whip the average new recruit just out of boot camp in a bayonet fight.



2. Or, have the orcs kill him then throw out the window, he'd fight for his books


Ummmmmm.. I should handwave his fight? But that's making him less than a PC. If he has the 20 ranks, he's a least 16th level, and should eat those orcs for breakfast.



3. Seduction has not rules (thankfully) so you don't really need to make a check there, just say she convince him, it is basically a business arraignment.


So, I should just handwave seduction, but not Craft: Magic Item?

I though you felt NPC's should use the same rules as PCs? Why isn't this a Diplomacy roll? Which would mean she'd need to be a Rogue, Bard or Beguiler of a given level to overcome the target's Sense Motive.

Starbuck_II
2008-03-06, 08:40 PM
What? :smallconfused:

The defining point of FATAL is its dysfunctional attitude towards women, sex, bodily functions, and common sense and decency. I doubt any narrativist thinks of simulationists so poorly that they attribute that level of depravity to them. Narrativists (at least me) think of Rolemaster, or some similarly rules heavy game.

I thought the defining point of Fatal was it had rules for sex, bathroom issues, and other problems not dfone in other games. Funniest part: it was easier to pee/poop by letting someone hit you than attempting it by a tiolet. Lmao.

I mean, other than funny issues with it: it was a terrible system. Who needs a roll to pee?!

FlyMolo
2008-03-06, 08:51 PM
From what I've seen of 4E, it's becoming a more specialized world. 3.5 is damn flexible. It's possible to play as any monster (despite the fact that a player character with 5 levels of Psion who's an illithid is ECL 21, and an illithid with 5 levels of Psion is CR 14. This makes no sense, by the way). 4E is a simpler world with more streamlined rules, and therefore faster and easier to play in. Hopefully they don't ditch the flexibility though.

Ozymandias
2008-03-06, 09:13 PM
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

That's easily my favorite xkcd.

Also, is there any mechanical evidence for the "world (not campaign) revolves around the player characters"?

TheThan
2008-03-06, 09:17 PM
I don't see why you need rules for this at all. The decision isn't arbitrary at all if justified by logic such as: "He's a bloody village blacksmith. He repairs horseshoes most of the time. HORSESHOES! And you expect him to have weapons of powerful magic sitting in the back of his store? And I suppose Dennis the peasant over there is supposed to have diamonds in his cupboard?"

And when they get to town Y, you describe the blacksmith just finishing up the packing of a handcrafted suit of beautifully crafted, engraved, faintly glowing plate armor to the captain of the city guard or some other high ranking noble, and one of his assistants wearing robes and muttering as he studies a spellbook.

Context clues, people. Learn em and love em.


You fail to see the point.

Look at table 5-2 on page 137 in the DMG. This table tells you how much gold (or undefined value) is available to an average town according to its size. This is used to determine what the heroes have available to them for purchase.

For example if City “Y” has a 3,000 gold piece limit, and a PC comes into a weapon smith’s shop and tries to order a +2 great sword (minimum price 8,350 gold pieces). The weapon smith cannot accommodate the PCs’ request. Perhaps the blacksmith doesn’t have the skill or knowledge needed to make that weapon, or whatever excuse fits the bill. Yet he can offer to make a +1 weapon (which is under the GP limit). If the PC is insistent, the weapon smith can always send him to his cousin in the next town who’s a much more skilled weapon smith (there’s always a cousin in the next town). Which can lead to adventures or quests in themselves.

Or you can finagle the rules a bit (as all Dms are entitled to do on occasion) and make this weapon smith the exception to the gold limits.


Yes you can do all this without the mechanics. But how heavy-handed are you being? Some players may take it as a sign that you simply don’t want to give them a +2 great sword. Even if the opposite is true (quest loot for instance). This can lead to all sorts of problems. But with the rules in place that determines what they have available to them, then they will know what town “Y” has to sell. That’s less likely to create a problem between players and DMs.

Neon Knight
2008-03-06, 09:19 PM
I thought the defining point of Fatal was it had rules for sex, bathroom issues, and other problems not dfone in other games. Funniest part: it was easier to pee/poop by letting someone hit you than attempting it by a tiolet. Lmao.

I mean, other than funny issues with it: it was a terrible system. Who needs a roll to pee?!

One could say that part of the dysfunctional attitude towards these objects was having rules for them. The ridiculous, immature, and misogynist things the rules promoted however was probably what most people remember.

Honestly, the rules in FATAL were so poor and so ill constructed with regards to verisimilitude that to call them an example of simulationism is an insult to the word. All of the words, in fact, since FATAL is an insult to the English language.

EDIT:



Yes you can do all this without the mechanics. But how heavy-handed are you being? Some players may take it as a sign that you simply don’t want to give them a +2 great sword. Even if the opposite is true (quest loot for instance). This can lead to all sorts of problems. But with the rules in place that determines what they have available to them, then they will know what town “Y” has to sell. That’s less likely to create a problem between players and DMs.

If I were to follow the rules, I am still responsible for setting the size of the town, and thus its GP limit. I am still responsible for this inability to purchase a +2 Greatsword.

"I'm just following the rules" is nothing but a cheap excuse that fools only fools. Rule Zero is a core rule. You limited PC access to weaponry by both deciding that the settlement would follow the rules and by setting the size of the village so that Pc buying opportunities were limited. As the DM, I am responsible for every single thing in the world aside from their PCs. Any limitations that world puts on them are limitations that I put on them.

I see no distinction between a thorp not having a magical item shop because the rules say so and a thorp not having a magical item shop because its common sense for a small isolated settlement to lack a proliferation of magical killing implements.

In both cases, I have decided the PCs access to magical items. In the first instance, I did it by deciding that the village would be a thorp and by deciding that it would follow the rules. In the second, I merely made a decision to enforce common sense.

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 09:30 PM
Once more into the breach... :smallannoyed:

EE,
In another thread you complemented my posting, and I listed out the things I try to do and not do. You may want to revisit that list and try to apply it to your own posts.

I said i enjoy arguing with you, not that i emulate you


Source, please. Back it up or give it up.

worlds and monsters


Fallacy. It is the DMs imagination that makes a world dynamic, regardless of whether or not the world is consistent to a set of rules. Rules neither promote nor prevent dynamic worlds.
when the rules go against the entire premise of consistency


1. What plot hook? And Why doe sit need to be a rule to be a plot hook?
2 & 3. Such information can (and in my opinion should) come from the DMs imagination or campaign setting book, and does not need to be a rule.


1. what?
2. It does when it comes to explaining your cosmology


1. Yes; they learn it through mental communication with their imagination.
2. Then the DM makes it up! That's what the post was all about. If my characters go to hell, they will encounter a series of encounters, as difficult as I, the DM, decide they should be. Why would I roll a random encounter if I can make something up that would be more fun?

1. That doesn't explain how they understand the cosmology
2. This isn't about the random encounters, this is about how hell works. As it effects the nature of souls in D&D thing would be nice to know. Who runs the place (Asmodeus, Satan, Belkar, BLack Mage, EvilElitest ect), how do souls come to it, what do the Devils do ect


1. if he's not a 20th level expert, he won't have the knowledge skills appropriate to his position. Therefore to be consistent, he must be level 20.
2. He's level 20! A few level 1 orc warriors are no match for his awesome combat prowess!


1. I think we should fix the skill system then, not the class system.
2. Then have the level 10 orc fighter destroy him in the epic battle of man kind



Unfortunately, DMs can't cast Time Stop in the real world.
Here is where pre planning come in. I mean you have the rule book, it isn't that hard.


They are inherently less important to the game than the PC's. Do you honestly feel that Kobold Scout# 2 is every bit as important as Grimban The Orphanmaker, Barbarian Priest of Hextor?
That depends on how they effect the world. If the PCs after reducing the scout to -3 hp patch him up and convert him to the cause of good and he becomes a powerful adventurer then yes he could. (Yes this did happen)


There is no feeling of immersion or verisimilitude gained by rolling stabilization on downed minions. 0 hp is "out of commission," and if the party searches the bodies or looks for wounded survivors to interrogate, the DM can wing a roll after the fact. If we have an Orc version of the Zulu War, where for very good reasons an Orc tribe goes on the warpath, and the PC's fight off countless droves of them to defend a supply depot, struggling in a last ditch defense by the light of the burning hospital (Orc's Drift, anyone?) Do we really need to know if the heaps of Orc casualties bleed out or not?
1. Except this applies to all NPCs, not just mooks
2. Yeah 0 hit points is out of commission. And -9 is dead. Is it really that hard to simply assume that not orc who hasn't been healed in nine rounds is dead?


The Orc leaders, shamans, etc can be fleshed out. So can individual Orcs the PC's talk to, and they can have compelling motivations, personalities and reasons for fighting. But we don't need to labor over each spear carrier.
3E had a solution, make them all basically the same. Every orc Spear carrier is a level 1 orc warrior with the standard feats ect.



If I use the same rules as the PC's I have to, or I have to accept that he can only have Level +3 ranks in Knowledge:Arcane. If he's a 2nd level Expert, he can have a whopping 5 ranks, so why would a PC go to him for info?

If I make him 20th level to justify his skill ranks, he can beat up the 5th level Barbarian, which is just stupid.

I want an NPC with a well developed backstory and motivations, who happens to have 20 ranks in Know: Arcane, but only 4 Hp and a BAB of 0 to reflect his being a freaking librarian, who has never drawn a blade larger than a letter opener.

That is realism, immersion and verisimilitude better than the RAW, which make any College Dean, master carpenter, or architect able to whip the average new recruit just out of boot camp in a bayonet fight.
1. Make a new feat that give you knowledge powers
2. use WOTC rules to homebrew a scholar class
3. Use a rule that allows him to have less HP but higher knowlage, but make sure other people can do that as well
Or if your WOTC
Fix teh freaking skill system, oh gods please


So, I should just handwave seduction, but not Craft: Magic Item?

I though you felt NPC's should use the same rules as PCs? Why isn't this a Diplomacy roll? Which would mean she'd need to be a Rogue, Bard or Beguiler of a given level to overcome the target's Sense Motive.

If the PCs did this, i'd not use diplomicy ether, i'd say it was a far buisness transaction. She is sleeping with him in order for him to do her a favor.
from
EE

ShadowSiege
2008-03-06, 09:32 PM
EE, Ralfarius is saying that arguing with you has about as much point as hurling oneself face first at a brick wall and expecting to do anything more than self-harm. You ignore any evidence we present that contradicts your view, and misconstrue statements that we make.

For the last damned time, they are not making the PCs the center of the world, they're making the PCs the center of the game. As they already are. There are other people like them in the world, some may go on to epic achievements, others will fail and be gobbled up by a gelatinous cube. The PCs are the extraordinary people in the world; the analogs to the scientists, theologians, and Olympic athletes of the modern world. Other people simply don't have "it" when it comes to being an adventurer. Stop acting like everyone should be the same. People are only equal when it comes to the law, not when it comes to their talents, skills and capabilities.

Edit: D&D is a game. There will be a segregation between gameplay and story. Trying to fit everything under a single set of rules will result in stupid things like taking 3 months to craft armor.

tyckspoon
2008-03-06, 09:38 PM
That depends on how they effect the world. If the PCs after reducing the scout to -3 hp patch him up and convert him to the cause of good and he becomes a powerful adventurer then yes he could. (Yes this did happen)


I know this is futile, I know this will get used just to lead off into some completely bizarre and unrelated point, and I'm kind of hating myself for getting myself drawn into the mess, but..

I hope you recognize the irony here. You just admitted that Kobold Scout #2 became a notable and important figure because the PCs interacted with him.

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 09:59 PM
EE, Ralfarius is saying that arguing with you has about as much point as hurling oneself face first at a brick wall and expecting to do anything more than self-harm. You ignore any evidence we present that contradicts your view, and misconstrue statements that we make.

1. Evidence that is ether countered or never seems to come up :smallamused:
2. And points that are countered.
3. If you make a claim, back it up.


For the last damned time, they are not making the PCs the center of the world, they're making the PCs the center of the game. As they already are. There are other people like them in the world, some may go on to epic achievements, others will fail and be gobbled up by a gelatinous cube. The PCs are the extraordinary people in the world; the analogs to the scientists, theologians, and Olympic athletes of the modern world. Other people simply don't have "it" when it comes to being an adventurer. Stop acting like everyone should be the same. People are only equal when it comes to the law, not when it comes to their talents, skills and capabilities.

If you have PC and NPC classes its fine, the PC classes are simply more advanced, while NPC classes are just average John Does

how ever in 4E the PCs are th only dudes with their class and are expected to cheat death and replace gods on a some what relative basis, now why are these half dozen so special? In game reason?



Edit: D&D is a game. There will be a segregation between gameplay and story. Trying to fit everything under a single set of rules will result in stupid things like taking 3 months to craft armor.
Other than you claiming it is bad, why is bad?



I know this is futile, I know this will get used just to lead off into some completely bizarre and unrelated point, and I'm kind of hating myself for getting myself drawn into the mess, but..

I hope you recognize the irony here. You just admitted that Kobold Scout #2 became a notable and important figure because the PCs interacted with him.
1. Ok, normally the cleric would effect the world more. The reason? Because he is higher level, not because he has a name. That is the in game reason
2. The Kobald could have gained levels and become powerful. It is just unlikely as he was only a random scout, but he could have. More to the point he could also escape the Pcs and level up ect. What is important is that he could level up and become more powerful
from
EE

ShadowSiege
2008-03-06, 10:05 PM
how ever in 4E the PCs are th only dudes with their class and are expected to cheat death and replace gods on a some what relative basis, now why are these half dozen so special? In game reason?


What? Since when are the PCs the only ones of their class? There are other adventurers in the world, and there is the rule of "There is always a bigger fish".


Other than you claiming it is bad, why is bad?

Because the rules themselves can break the verisimilitude.

Woot Spitum
2008-03-06, 10:10 PM
You know, as interesting as the daily life and culture of bad guy X in bad guy location Y might be, I think the idea that such information being relegated to splatbooks and campaign settings (which incidentally is pretty much the same as 3.x) is fine. The core rulebooks have more critical things to describe such as how to hit things with a sword (player's handbook), where to find things to hit with said sword (dungeon master's guide), and what sort of things you can hit with a sword (monster manual). It would be nice if they could sum up this information in a few dozen pages, but then hundreds of thousands of tabletop rpg fans would be up in arms about how it isn't realistic and that without detailed rules for kicking chairs out from underneath people every one of their players are going to walk out of their game.

Zincorium
2008-03-06, 10:13 PM
1. Evidence that is ether countered or never seems to come up :smallamused:
2. And points that are countered.
3. If you make a claim, back it up.

Realize that you are coming off as really smug here. Like, perhaps, an elitist of sorts, rather than an elitest.


If you have PC and NPC classes its fine, the PC classes are simply more advanced, while NPC classes are just average John Does

On the other hand, 'levels' give benefits other than being good at a particular job, such as BAB and hit points, that do not square with their lack of training. Npc classes are a bad mix of limitations and unwanted benefits, handwaving the required skills makes things more realistic and easier.


how ever in 4E the PCs are th only dudes with their class and are expected to cheat death and replace gods on a some what relative basis, now why are these half dozen so special? In game reason?

They're heroes? It seems good enough for Conan. Extraordinary courage and the favoritism of the gods is a classic trope in mythology, extending it to D&D isn't exactly a novel idea. If you just can't stomach the lack of an explicit reason, why not make one up for your particular group? I can think of several reasons the PCs would be, in effect, chosen by destiny to be better than the run of the mill.



Other than you claiming it is bad, why is bad?

Because that means either people do not craft items, or they spend three months of downtime on something. Downtime that will either be fast-forwarded through or will result in them being absent for one or more adventures. It's just not really entertaining no matter which way you slice it, and this is a game- entertainment is really the only thing differentiating between good and bad.



1. Ok, normally the cleric would effect the world more. The reason? Because he is higher level, not because he has a name. That is the in game reason
2. The Kobald could have gained levels and become powerful. It is just unlikely as he was only a random scout, but he could have. More to the point he could also escape the Pcs and level up ect. What is important is that he could level up and become more powerful
from
EE

And you completely missed the point on 2 there. If the PCs never interact with the kobold, directly or indirectly, then no matter what the level or role he has, it's all meaningless. The kobold absolutely has to affect the players or be affected to be a part of the game. Stuff happening off to the side, that doesn't matter to the characters, is a poor use of game time.

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 10:15 PM
What? Since when are the PCs the only ones of their class? There are other adventurers in the world, and there is the rule of "There is always a bigger fish".

"Adventures are Exceptional
The adventures created by the players are the pioneers, explores, trailblazers, thrill seekers, and the heroes of the D&D world. Although some non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a difference purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like the PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd level fighter; an army of elves is largely made up of non classed solders.


Because the rules themselves can break the verisimilitude.

But aren't made for the purpose of doing so
from
EE

EvilElitest
2008-03-06, 10:23 PM
Realize that you are coming off as really smug here. Like, perhaps, an elitist of sorts, rather than an elitest.

Um, why did you just compliment me? Have you read my definition of Elitest?


On the other hand, 'levels' give benefits other than being good at a particular job, such as BAB and hit points, that do not square with their lack of training. Npc classes are a bad mix of limitations and unwanted benefits, handwaving the required skills makes things more realistic and easier.

The idea of NPC classes are that they are just the adverage unimportant versions of the PCs. However not all NPCs have NPC classes


They're heroes? It seems good enough for Conan. Extraordinary courage and the favoritism of the gods is a classic trope in mythology, extending it to D&D isn't exactly a novel idea. If you just can't stomach the lack of an explicit reason, why not make one up for your particular group? I can think of several reasons the PCs would be, in effect, chosen by destiny to be better than the run of the mill.


1. If you like Conan games, the wouldn't you be better suited for its own game
2. It isn't a matter of stomaching it, i want a reason damnit. Why would half a dozen guys be so super powerful? There isn't any given reason at all. It doesn't make sense and ruins consistency


Because that means either people do not craft items, or they spend three months of downtime on something. Downtime that will either be fast-forwarded through or will result in them being absent for one or more adventures. It's just not really entertaining no matter which way you slice it, and this is a game- entertainment is really the only thing differentiating between good and bad.

Then change craft, not the NPC thing



And you completely missed the point on 2 there. If the PCs never interact with the kobold, directly or indirectly, then no matter what the level or role he has, it's all meaningless. The kobold absolutely has to affect the players or be affected to be a part of the game. Stuff happening off to the side, that doesn't matter to the characters, is a poor use of game time.
1. The Kobold is less likely to make a difference, but nothing stops it in theory from effecting teh world. Who knows, it might be the lucky kobold who kills the king of Nowhere
2. Except thing happening in other parts of the world will affect the world and thus effect hte PCs
3. So you admit the world revolves around teh PCs, i mean if nothing on screen is important
from
EE

TheThan
2008-03-06, 10:27 PM
The rules support your decision to make the town a thorp or hamlet or whatever. Having the rules allows you decide what’s appropriate for that town. If Bill the barbarians can’t afford an 8,000 dollar sword because the town can only afford 3,000 bucks worth of an item. Then its safe to assume that Larry the Lecherous bard can only afford to spend up to 3 grand on strippers (maybe their not up to the challenge, there are only three strippers in town, something I dunno). Even if there is a red light district where that sort of activity goes on.

Game masters are only humans; we’re not perfect. We make mistakes, we forget important dialogs or other bits of facts. Having rules to make our games run smoother and help make the game more enjoyable are usually welcomed.
What’s the difference in having rules that dictate what the town can afford, and deciding what a town, based upon your own judgment can afford? Not much really, unless we’re talking about an off the cuff decision (which I’m assuming we’re not). The effects are the same, its just the difference in how you (or I ) come to that effect.

I’m not saying having rules for everything is necessary. Just imagine the rules for eating:

"Ok roll grapple check against your food, your fork gives you +2 bonus to that roll... ok you succeed in grappling your food, now roll attack with your bite attack to see if you can get it in your mouth. Succeed? Great now roll chewing damage. Do you have the swallow whole ability? No? Too bad, you can't get the food down *rolls some dice* you're starting to choke, roll a fortitude save...

*A few dice rolls later*

“you’re starting to turn blue, and you take 1d4 points of damage, what’s that Bill? Angstnor wants to help Sir Melancholy? Ok Frank, make a sign language check. Succeed? Nice rolling. Ok Angstnor you realize that Frank, I mean Sir Melancholy is choking. Do you have the Heimlich maneuver feat? No? Make a first aid check, you don’t get a bonus to that since you don’t have the feat….”

Sir Melancholy should have stated he was going to chew his food fully before swallowing.

Unless it’s a joke, nobody would really want rules like that. Hell I hand wave non combat movement anyway. Since I don’t care how long it takes to get from point A to point B, unless plot point C requires them to get there in a certain amount of time, or at a certain time. Its all comes down to the Dm’s play style and personal tastes.

ShadowSiege
2008-03-06, 10:30 PM
"Adventures are Exceptional
The adventures created by the players are the pioneers, explores, trailblazers, thrill seekers, and the heroes of the D&D world. Although some non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs dop and they exist for a difference purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like the PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd level fighter; an army of elves is largely made up of non classed solders.


Hey, look, the PCs aren't unique, Edit: people like them are just rare.


But aren't made for the purpose of doing so
from
EE

But the armor example does break the verisimilitude when if left to the DM, it wouldn't

Neon Knight
2008-03-06, 10:45 PM
They also support my decision to circumvent the rules as I please via Rule 0. I see no difference between a decision made via rule adherence verses on made via judgment if the end result is the same. A limitation is a limitation regardless of how it was reached.

You end remark is at the heart of the matter, of course; it is all relative. But both DM Fiat and rule adherence are equally supported by the rules.

Zincorium
2008-03-06, 10:50 PM
Um, why did you just compliment me? Have you read my definition of Elitest?

Yes. But an elitist (notice the I where your word places an E) is usually considered a bad thing, a pejorative term, if you will. Frankly, you should probably check the spelling you are using to make sure it's an actual word. Add in the fact that you apparently also are evil, and, well, the fact that I couldn't call you an evil elitist without getting an official warning if it wasn't your screen name should tell you something about how the word is typically used.


The idea of NPC classes are that they are just the adverage unimportant versions of the PCs. However not all NPCs have NPC classes

Yes, some of them have PC classes. What I'm getting at is that classes are a bad way to represent NPCs, something that I'll argue with you only if you actually respond to my statement.


1. If you like Conan games, the wouldn't you be better suited for its own game
2. It isn't a matter of stomaching it, i want a reason damnit. Why would half a dozen guys be so super powerful? There isn't any given reason at all. It doesn't make sense and ruins consistency

I don't actually prefer Conan games, nor was that the point. The point was that in many of the sources that D&D takes inspiration from, heroes are powerful because they make themselves that way. That you're unsatisfied with such an explanation is reasonable but doesn't make you special in any way.

Like I said, make up one. The heroes are the descendents of a god, a la Baldur's gate. They are a collection of the elite of their races and countries, brought together by a quest that threatens the entire world. They're just lucky as heck.


1. The Kobold is less likely to make a difference, but nothing stops it in theory from effecting teh world. Who knows, it might be the lucky kobold who kills the king of Nowhere
2. Except thing happening in other parts of the world will affect the world and thus effect hte PCs
3. So you admit the world revolves around teh PCs, i mean if nothing on screen is important
from
EE

1&2: Does the word 'interact' and it's meaning that I'm using elude you? If you're not actually going to disagree, then acknowledge that we're agreeing. It's that simple.

3. What's on screen is the only thing that's important. If what you said was just an accident of phrasing: anything that does not affect the PCs, change the conditions they're in, or in some way impacts the campaign world in a noticable way, doesn't belong in the game. Write a novel if you want to tell a story not involving the players, the game is for what happens to the PCs.

Rutee
2008-03-06, 11:04 PM
Yes. But an elitist (notice the I where your word places an E) is usually considered a bad thing, a pejorative term, if you will. Frankly, you should probably check the spelling you are using to make sure it's an actual word. Add in the fact that you apparently also are evil, and, well, the fact that I couldn't call you an evil elitist without getting an official warning if it wasn't your screen name should tell you something about how the word is typically used.

An elitist is usually elite, more importantly.

But seriously, /why are you posting to him/? He has extreme amounts of difficulty comprehending the written word, for whatever reason. You'll save yourself time, and not detract from your own argument at all, if you just stop paying attention to him.

Indon
2008-03-06, 11:06 PM
Well, there's been a lot of talking. I can't say I agree with all of it, but I'm not going to respond to it all right now. Instead, I'm going to provide an example of a really good simulationist subsystem in a D20 system. And to do that, I'm going to use...

World of Warcraft! got your attention.

Specifically, World of Warcraft : The Roleplaying Game, a d20 version of the Warcraft universe based on 3.5. Since the game world is ultimately that of a strategy game, an entire chapter (the last one) was dedicated to settlements.

The system treats settlements as if they are a special category of PC's - their primary stat is their population, which determines the community's level, which in turn determines its' stat points.

They have six stats (military force, ability to mobilize people and resources, ability to resist catastrophe, cumulative learning of the community, spiritual and political health, and cultural influence) that roughly correlate to the 6 D&D stats. Communities purchase their stats with a point buy system.

There are four different kinds of 'levels' cities can have, illustrating where the community is focused - mixed communities can multiclass freely. There are standard communities, military communities, religious communities, and even arcane communities, and the system is modular enough to make a new class if you need one. Each different type of community raises the community's defensibility, reputation, wealth, and collective skills in different ways.

Yes, communities get class and cross-class skills, just like players. Community skills, of course, reflect how prolific experts in a field are in that town (so as a result, Craft and Profession are kinda, well... important for once). Communities also get feats, when applicable.

From there, there are rules on how communities effect each other, and how events can effect communities, and how PC's and other heroes can guide or manipulate communities, aside from being walking regional events.

And finally, it shows what effects a community's population, and so ultimately its' survival.

I think it's one of the best examples of a simulationist system I've ever seen, and it was fit into D20, no less.

Fhaolan
2008-03-06, 11:09 PM
Edit: D&D is a game. There will be a segregation between gameplay and story. Trying to fit everything under a single set of rules will result in stupid things like taking 3 months to craft armor.

Just as a note, a full plate harness can easily take 3 months to craft from scratch, if the armorer starts from getting the metal as lumps of pig iron that have to be carbonized, shaped, and tempered. As for non-plate, drawing wire for maille is a *serious* pain in the arse, as is all those stupid tiny rivets. And each of those scales and small plates for brigadine had to be made by hand, usually by apprentices because it's dead boring.

Mind you a professional armorer with reasonable product turnover will likely have a stockpile of partially finished parts for shaping, tailoring, and decorating to the purchaser's requirements. You get your harness in one month, and the armorer spends the next two until his next rich customer making more blanks. This is one of the standard ways old-fashioned handcraftsmen worked. At least those who wanted to really make a living at it. It's amazing how many modern handcraftsmen don't realize that, which is one of the reasons they go out of business so quickly.

Unfortunately, I've never seens a skill system in any RPG that actually models this. The time taken always assumes starting from scratch, and never allows for required 'down time' for making blanks. Probably because it assumes that the adventurers show up with raw materials of their own, dragon hides, mithril ore, whatever, and demand that the craftsmen use those materials. In which case the armorer is perfectly justified in saying 'three to six months'.

Don't mind me, I've spent too much time doing handcrafts myself. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: As a note, most modern armorers I've dealt with can produce a full harness of plate in about six months from rolled sheet steel. Better armorers can cut that time down massively, but they also tend to spend a lot more time tempering and doing other work that eats up time as well. I know one guy in Canada who does museum work who takes three years to make a suit of plate. [Mind you, he's probably making three suits simultaneously for different clients, but I've been told that if he concentrates on one suit only he really doesn't go much faster on that harness. Doing multiple suits simultaneously gets the production line thing going.]

ShadowSiege
2008-03-06, 11:25 PM
An elitist is usually elite, more importantly.

But seriously, /why are you posting to him/? He has extreme amounts of difficulty comprehending the written word, for whatever reason. You'll save yourself time, and not detract from your own argument at all, if you just stop paying attention to him.

Because some people actually think his opinion is worth something, which means he must be contested. The fact that he didn't even spell his name correctly (Yes, I am poisoning the well, though the water is already toxic) should tip everyone off to how much credence he should be given, but it doesn't. So people have to go around arguing against him because otherwise it will look like he's right.

Rutee
2008-03-06, 11:32 PM
It's like he's a walking shotgun offense.

Also, spiffy system, Indon. I'd probably use it if I was going to make community affecting a major deal.

ShadowSiege
2008-03-06, 11:43 PM
Just as a note, a full plate harness can easily take 3 months to craft from scratch, if the armorer starts from getting the metal as lumps of pig iron that have to be carbonized, shaped, and tempered. As for non-plate, drawing wire for maille is a *serious* pain in the arse, as is all those stupid tiny rivets. And each of those scales and small plates for brigadine had to be made by hand, usually by apprentices because it's dead boring.

...

Interesting. I knew it took incredibly long to craft maille. I didn't think plate would take so long to construct, and my original given time of 3 months should actually be almost a year to craft a suit of full plate if you use the crafting rules as presented in the PHB/SRD (46.29 weeks), well beyond the 3-6 month window you've given. Longer if you a crafting it as masterwork. My point thus still stands: plate mail takes ridiculously long to make using the crafting rules. Even longer if making it out of adamantine and having to factor in the cost of that into crafting (9.79 years).

The crafter that makes the armor for museums that you mentioned is, I presume, using traditional methods and making the armor as much works of art as functional suits.

How would you compare the time of creating a suit of chain mail to that of a full plate?

Matthew
2008-03-07, 12:05 AM
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

That's easily my favorite xkcd.

Also, is there any mechanical evidence for the "world (not campaign) revolves around the player characters"?

Hah, hah. That's perfect. I've been trapped like that more times than I can count.

Rutee
2008-03-07, 12:08 AM
I'd say that the ability to relate to that comic is one of the best litmus tests of nerddom, yesh :smallbiggrin:

Fhaolan
2008-03-07, 12:13 AM
How would you compare the time of creating a suit of chain mail to that of a full plate?

There's a lot of variables that make the comparison difficult.

For example, plate pretty much has to be handled by the armorer himself due to the complexity, while you can slough off a lot of maille work to apprentices, assistants, etc., because it's tedious, and fiddly, rote work. Which means you can have multiple lesser-skilled people working on one hauberk simultaneously, and pretty much only one person working the plate.

Another problem is style. Maximillian plate is a lot more complex and fiddly than Itallian white harness, but they are both full plate. On the maille side, you can have mutliple different kinds of weave, but more importantly you can be dealling with non-riveted/butted maille, fully riveted maille, or either with alternating solid rings (basically washers). Solid rings are a lot faster to produce and use than drawn-wire split rings (for butted or riveted), if you have to go from raw pig iron. If you're starting from already-drawn wire, however, it's faster to spin and clip that into split rings. Riveted tends to be a lot stronger than butted, but takes *ages* to produce because you're dealing with the most insanely tiny little rivets that all have to be done individually.

If we're talking average plate vs average maille, produced by armorers of the same skill level, and only counting the time actually working on the project, I would say maille takes a lot less time to produce than plate. However, it's a lot harder to work consistantly at the maille because it's incredibly tedious, and it doesn't require anywhere near the skill as plate does, so it's incredibly boring.

Scale is kinda the worst of both worlds, especially if you go the supposedly Roman method which has the scales connected to each other by maille rings, rather than sewn to a leather backing. Now you have to deal with the problem of maille rings, and the problem of multiple small plates of formed metal. I have a hauberk of this, but intelligently I decided to purchase thousands of fishing lure spinners from a supplier who churned them out with a stamping press, rather than try to make the stupid scales myself. :smallcool:

Hrmmm. Okay, I think I'm sufficiently off topic now to be close to earning a warning from moderators. :) If you want to continue this, we should skip over to the 'Real Armor and Weapons' thread, where I hang out most of the time anyway. :smallsmile:

Edit: Sorry, forgot to address your other points. Yep, the armorer doing the museum pieces is hand-forging very decorative yet fully functional suits. So it would be top-end, mastercraft kind of stuff. I agree that the crafting times are all off, but personally I think that's because the times are based on the listed prices of the equipment, and I think the prices are all haywire to begin with. I don't think that the crafting 'system' is really that bad in 3.x, except that it's suffering from bad input parameters (to use a computing phrase).

ShadowSiege
2008-03-07, 12:35 AM
*snip*

Summary: Mail easier, faster but more boring, hence often left for apprentices to deal with. Full plate time varies based upon style (some are more complex designs such as Maximillian, a fluted style). Scale a'la Roman style is the worst due to being labor intensive.

Hrmmm. Okay, I think I'm sufficiently off topic now to be close to earning a warning from moderators. :) If you want to continue this, we should skip over to the 'Real Armor and Weapons' thread, where I hang out most of the time anyway. :smallsmile:

Well, no further questions, thanks for the info, it was pertinent to a point being made, and we needn't explore the tangent further in this thread. In the end, attempting to apply a general rule to something complicated fails rather horribly in the case of simulating crafting.

horseboy
2008-03-07, 01:41 AM
Context clues, people. Learn em and love em.I agree. In none of the other games I play has it ever been a problem and none of them have rules for it. This is a by-product of the gear dependance of D&D.


That is realism, immersion and verisimilitude better than the RAW, which make any College Dean, master carpenter, or architect able to whip the average new recruit just out of boot camp in a bayonet fight.
Well, the carpenter does swing a 1handed concussion weapon all day.

I mean, other than funny issues with it: it was a terrible system. Who needs a roll to pee?!People with enlarged prostates? :smalleek:

But aren't made for the purpose of doing soNo, diplomacy wasn't built to break the game, it just does.

Cuddly
2008-03-07, 02:38 AM
My entire point is that there are people who don't like NPCs to be meaningless mooks to be used by PCs in a certain way and then forgotten. And who don't like world revolving around what players want and what's dramatically appropriate. As a response to Mike G's post, which basically dismissed them as nitpicky and playing D&D in a Wrong Way. It's not about detail, it's about belivability and immersion.

But in 3x, NPCs that were important or unimportant required the same level of detail. To make a bunch of mooks for a believable fight- the enemy casters buff the party, the enemy fighter drinks a potion before he enters combat, the ogre picked up a different feat so he could use a longspear, etc, for me, as a DM, takes hours of work.

And that's just the mechanics so that I am allowed to roleplay the monsters as "believable". As in, yeah, the 18 in elven wizard wasn't a complete retard, and when he heard you guys coming, cast bull strength on his friends, or enlarge. And this requires keeping track of spells, BAB, damage (if they're using two handed weapons, damage scales differently than with one handed weapons or if they're TWF).

Ideally, I'd like to explain my CR appropriate challenge with "oh yeah, there's a slinky one in the back with a couple daggers, a brute with a long spear behind two with shields, all guarding what's obviously a wizard in the back." Then I could spend my time working out there personalities, rather than ****ing with all the minutiae that you seem to believe is necessary for creating an encounter.


And let's not forget that if I DO want to set up some mooks for players to push through, a couple battles without all that "gee, let's get to know these guys! Maybe these brutal thugs have feelings and we should interact with them like we're going for Best Picture!" crap (not to disparage all those groups out there who spend more time talking to your encounters and forcing your DM to play a shizophrenic than they do actually fighting), I still have to stat out a bunch of NPCs.

JadedDM
2008-03-07, 04:34 AM
Honestly, I remember when 3E came out and someone told me about NPC classes and levels. And for the life of me, I still can't understand what the point of them were. It seemed so...so unnecessary!

If the PCs go to the local armorer and ask him to custom-make them some armor, I don't need to know how many NWP slots he has in Armorer or what his INT score is. Odds are he doesn't have any stats at all, including HP, level, classes or ability scores. He's just a level-0 NPC. (And so there's no confusion, the term 'level 0' means NO LEVEL, not one level less than 1. I've had people get confused with that before.) I won't roll to see if he makes his Armorer check, because there's no reason to. He'll probably just automatically succeed, unless for some reason I don't want the party to have custom armor. (And why wouldn't I, assuming they have the time and money for it?)

Now if a PC has the Armorer proficiency, I will make him roll for making custom armor. Why? Because most likely he has spent his time learning how to fight (or cast spells or steal or whatever) but the NPC armorer has spent his entire life learning to make armor--it is his livelihood. So unless the PC is some kind of prodigy, the NPC is probably going to be better at it. (But hey, that's okay...because the PC can probably kick butt in battle way better than the NPC armorer can!)

The whole concept of giving regular people (non-adventurers) levels just always struck me as incredibly asinine. If 4E is getting rid of that idea, then more power to them. It's one of the few things I'd agree with them on then.

JBento
2008-03-07, 05:37 AM
However, consider this:

What if the problem is that we generalise the way classes gain XP? Why is the wizard getting better at casting spells if he bumps a kobold over the hed with his staff? Why is the rogue getting better at opening locks by stabbing folks in the face from the shadows?

In the same vein, why don't say, the Expert-classed NPCs gain experience not by beating people up, but by crafting stuff? Why don't they get, say, 1000XP everytime the finish crafting a full plate armour?

Food for thought (poisoned food, perhaps? you tell me)

Skjaldbakka
2008-03-07, 05:44 AM
"This sword required a Craft DC of 32, and knowledge of 6th level spells, so we're dealing with at least an 11th level Wizard," which is more immersion breaking than any stripped down "mooks die when hit" rule could ever be.

I disagree. This sword requires a wizard able to cast 6th level spells,and is thus at least 11th level is just fine, and not immersion breaking, as long as they don't call the wizard 11th level IG. A wizard capable of casting 6th level spells made this sword, therefore we are dealing with a wizard capable of casting 6th level spells is in no way immersion breaking, in my experience.

JBento
2008-03-07, 05:53 AM
Half-true on my opinion. If the spells have been categorised by level (which they obviously are, even in-game) then the Wizards who can cast spells of each elvel have ALSO been categorised in terms of power (though not necessarilly called levels, maybe ranks or something - 1E actually had a name for every character level).

nagora
2008-03-07, 06:22 AM
For example if City “Y” has a 3,000 gold piece limit, and a PC comes into a weapon smith’s shop and tries to order a +2 great sword (minimum price 8,350 gold pieces).


That's an easy one: "You can't buy magic items. Go out and find them you spineless whimp."

The PC's are more important than the NPCs, otherwise the players would be playing the NPCs. I mean, who wants to play characters that aren't important?

In a game where you gain levels, the PCs start off with the potential to become more important, but they already have something about them that sets them out from the crowd, or at least they should.

Maybe they'll fail; maybe they won't. But it is that potential that makes them PCs and the lack of potential that keeps 98% of NPCs just simple three or four word entries in the DM's notes.

The major NPCs should be played much more like PCs, but even they are limited - they should increase in level much more slowly than the PCs, if at all. The game is about the PCs because the PCs are the extraordinary characters we want to hear about.

Reinboom
2008-03-07, 06:52 AM
The PC's are more important than the NPCs, otherwise the players would be playing the NPCs. I mean, who wants to play characters that aren't important?

I do.

Also, I've had a player who specifically wanted a character (and played, happily as a character) who was a half-orc commoner, and was more concerned with having his character survive in a group of adventurers - as well as the occasional random interaction - than actually being significant to the adventuring at all.
His character was weak, and had very little influence. He loved it.


...


However , I've yet to see anything in what has been presented preventing me from being insignificant or strictly disallowing insignificance. So, it doesn't really matter.

Just like there is nothing telling me I have to play this horrible idea for an RPG that wizards of the coast is making called "4th edition". I can't wait to try out some of wizards of the coast's great ideas for this great game called "4th edition" though.
Dungeons and Dragons is dead. Long live Dungeon and Dragons.

nagora
2008-03-07, 06:56 AM
Also, I've had a player who specifically wanted a character (and played, happily as a character) who was a half-orc commoner, and was more concerned with having his character survive in a group of adventurers - as well as the occasional random interaction - than actually being significant to the adventuring at all.


Sounds to me like other half-orc commoners would think he was worth hearing about. That's what made him a PC.

I know it's a bit circular, but if the character's story was worth playing through then he/she/it was by definition more interesting than the characters we don't play, and therefore more important.

Reinboom
2008-03-07, 07:03 AM
Sounds to me like other half-orc commoners would think he was worth hearing about. That's what made him a PC.

I know it's a bit circular, but if the character's story was worth playing through then he/she/it was by definition more interesting than the characters we don't play, and therefore more important.

Oh no, not at all. The only significant thing about this character really was that he was in a group of significant characters.
When a combat happened, he would just sit on the side lines or hide.

His concern was really that he just wanted to roleplay someone completely insignificant.


Also, though from a different thread... I need to quote this here (hey, look, it's by the person I'm replying to, as well!)


The consistant problem with later editions is that the designers thought that having a system for things which sucked was better than having no system at all and relying on the DM to run his/her own game. They were wrong.

I shall present this as an counter argument that I agree to against those who want more rules.
Which, I consider diplomacy as an extreme example (and failure, there of).



=edit=
It just struck me, the player did want to play something significant!
The half orc was significant because it was insignificant! AHA!

nagora
2008-03-07, 08:44 AM
=edit=
It just struck me, the player did want to play something significant!
The half orc was significant because it was insignificant! AHA!

Indeed; how many parties of significant people have included just the one totally insignificant member? Pretty interesting, eh?

The fact that we've now had three postings about this guy also says something about the significance too.:smallbiggrin:

Indon
2008-03-07, 09:10 AM
Indeed; how many parties of significant people have included just the one totally insignificant member? Pretty interesting, eh?

Very narratively significant. Not very simulationally (simulationistically?) significant.

The narrative tells the players, "Your players are special because you're playing them," but the simulation tells your players, "Your players are special if they stand out in some way." (meanwhile, the game tells them they're special if they contribute to the party in some novel way, but that's aside the point)

You can't play a narratively insignificant character, but you can play one that's insignificant in the scope of the simulation (and/or game).

JBento
2008-03-07, 09:26 AM
I think he was still simulation-significant. I'm sure his mere presence affected the way the other characters reacted. Perhaps the Fighter moved to HERE instead of THERE lest the ghouls attacked his defenseless friend. Perhaps the Wizard had to spend a few more actions casting protection spells on him, and the Cleric burnt a few more healing ones when he inadvertently found himself within radius of a fireball.

Significant does not equal "increasing party efficiency" :smallsmile:

And perhaps everyone enjoyed the game more that way. It certainly seems to add a new strategic dimension to combat.

Capt'n Ironbrow
2008-03-07, 09:51 AM
Indeed; how many parties of significant people have included just the one totally insignificant member? Pretty interesting, eh?

The fact that we've now had three postings about this guy also says something about the significance too.:smallbiggrin:

D&D is not really my group's system but we had a "near-insignificant" halfling beggar/herdsman/herbalist with a Pet fire lizard who'd rather open up a herbalist shop or herd his employer's flock of sheep than to go on adventures (needles to say, the shop was visited by racketeers and the flock was slaughtered by a band of brigands)... He was also the least likely to speak his mind on the plans the party made ("it's not important"). However, he was a very loyal friend to the others and his modest and peacefull nature was a nice alternative to the boastfull dwarves, hasty and arrogant elves and self-righteous and/or greedy humans.

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-07, 10:26 AM
The fact that this 'nobody' is in the party in the first place is signicant. If I were a member of the adventuring party, I'd need a pretty good reason to lug around a commoner. Chances are they'll be more pain than gain, or get killed off in random fashion. It's the reason why someone like Indana Jones or Lara Croft (and to a lesser extent Sydney Fox) wouldn't bring a random non-guide member of the closest native village along for their latest adventure - they'll get killed and won't really help very much.

On the flip side, from the commoner's perspective, assuming he 'retires', he'll likely be the new important person from his village. The fact that he's experienced all these events and (hopefully) lived to tell about it sets him apart.

nagora
2008-03-07, 11:29 AM
You can't play a narratively insignificant character, but you can play one that's insignificant in the scope of the simulation (and/or game).

A fair point, although of course the simulation is of secondary importance in a fantasy setting anyway (compounded by the mathematical impossibility of constructing a coherent and accurate simulation of any setting in any genre using just game rules).



However, he was a very loyal friend to the others and his modest and peacefull nature was a nice alternative to the boastfull dwarves, hasty and arrogant elves and self-righteous and/or greedy humans.

Are you an Ent?

fendrin
2008-03-07, 12:00 PM
1. The Kobold is less likely to make a difference, but nothing stops it in theory from effecting teh world. Who knows, it might be the lucky kobold who kills the king of Nowhere
2. Except thing happening in other parts of the world will affect the world and thus effect hte PCs

My impression of an EE-style game, based on the above:

Player1: "I attack the orc. I rolled a 15 for a total of 22."
DM: "You hit, roll damage"
Player1: "I rolled a 5 for a total of 13."
DM: "The orc falls to the ground, unconscious and bleeding."
Player2: "Ok, I'm next in the initiative. I'm going to..."
DM: "Hold on, there's a basketweaver in town, I have to roll his craft check. Oh, and a team of diplomats is negotiating with your king about trade policy. That's another half-dozen diplomacy checks, there's a civil war brewing in the next country over, so press gangs are forcing people to join the army, that's about 50 intimidate checks.. oh! there's a huge war halfway across the world, thats about 80,000 attack rolls, and 50,000 stabilization rolls... Oh, and the blood war, of course! How could I forget the blood war? Let's see, Infinite demons, infinite devils, so infinite attack rolls! Why don't you come back next week? I might be done by then."
Player1: "WTB?"
Player2: "Screw this. Hey, player1, I'm gonna start up a new game. you wanna play?"
Player1 "Sure why not, it can't be worse than this!"

Mr. Friendly
2008-03-07, 12:07 PM
My impression of an EE-style game, based on the above:

Player1: "I attack the orc. I rolled a 15 for a total of 22."
DM: "You hit, roll damage"
Player1: "I rolled a 5 for a total of 13."
DM: "The orc falls to the ground, unconscious and bleeding."
Player2: "Ok, I'm next in the initiative. I'm going to..."
DM: "Hold on, there's a basketweaver in town, I have to roll his craft check. Oh, and a team of diplomats is negotiating with your king about trade policy. That's another half-dozen diplomacy checks, there's a civil war brewing in the next country over, so press gangs are forcing people to join the army, that's about 50 intimidate checks.. oh! there's a huge war halfway across the world, thats about 80,000 attack rolls, and 50,000 stabilization rolls... Oh, and the blood war, of course! How could I forget the blood war? Let's see, Infinite demons, infinite devils, so infinite attack rolls! Why don't you come back next week? I might be done by then."
Player1: "WTB?"
Player2: "Screw this. Hey, player1, I'm gonna start up a new game. you wanna play?"
Player1 "Sure why not, it can't be worse than this!"

I hate you.

I hate you so much.

I just shot soda out of my nose and mouth and onto the monitor. I also have to go use the bio-facilities pretty bad and your post didn't help that.

I hope you are happy. :smallbiggrin:

Artanis
2008-03-07, 12:29 PM
Honestly, I remember when 3E came out and someone told me about NPC classes and levels. And for the life of me, I still can't understand what the point of them were. It seemed so...so unnecessary!
If you thought 3e NPC classes were bad, imagine what 4e NPC classes - which so many people are clamoring for - would be.

Since attack bonus, save rolls, skills, and defenses are all based on level, NPC classes would have virtually no effect whatsoever. If somebody really wanted to play an "NPC class", they can just make a character that's a level lower and only has half as many powers. Same end effect.




Edit: Bah, didn't think part of my response through :smallfrown:

fendrin
2008-03-07, 01:02 PM
I hate you.

I hate you so much.

I just shot soda out of my nose and mouth and onto the monitor. I also have to go use the bio-facilities pretty bad and your post didn't help that.

I hope you are happy. :smallbiggrin:
Mission accomplished. :smallcool:

clockwork warrior
2008-03-07, 01:16 PM
Indeed; how many parties of significant people have included just the one totally insignificant member? Pretty interesting, eh?

The fact that we've now had three postings about this guy also says something about the significance too.:smallbiggrin:
reminds me of my friends first character ever, a kobold slave to another character. he was cool because his intelligence and charisma were horrible, but he was the wisest member of the party. he never killed a foe, and could barely even hurt most of them, but with his body harness and rope ( think like a little kid) he had his uses

and boy did he like cooking stew...that made his little kobold day

Neon Knight
2008-03-07, 05:19 PM
The narrative tells the players, "Your players are special because you're playing them," but the simulation tells your players, "Your players are special if they stand out in some way."

I disagree.

The narrative tells players, "Your characters are special because":

A) They are the viewpoint from which the story is told, just like Nick in The Great Gatsby, old sport. :smallwink:

B) They are the protagonists of the story.

C) This isn't necessarily true of every single narrative, but in a large number of stories the protagonists are the agents of change within the story.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-07, 07:08 PM
My impression of an EE-style game, based on the above:

Player1: "I attack the orc. I rolled a 15 for a total of 22."
DM: "You hit, roll damage"
Player1: "I rolled a 5 for a total of 13."
DM: "The orc falls to the ground, unconscious and bleeding."
Player2: "Ok, I'm next in the initiative. I'm going to..."
DM: "Hold on, there's a basketweaver in town, I have to roll his craft check. Oh, and a team of diplomats is negotiating with your king about trade policy. That's another half-dozen diplomacy checks, there's a civil war brewing in the next country over, so press gangs are forcing people to join the army, that's about 50 intimidate checks.. oh! there's a huge war halfway across the world, thats about 80,000 attack rolls, and 50,000 stabilization rolls... Oh, and the blood war, of course! How could I forget the blood war? Let's see, Infinite demons, infinite devils, so infinite attack rolls! Why don't you come back next week? I might be done by then."
Player1: "WTB?"
Player2: "Screw this. Hey, player1, I'm gonna start up a new game. you wanna play?"
Player1 "Sure why not, it can't be worse than this!"

There's an old thread on RPG.net about an Exalted game that was run almost like that, the line that broke the players was "There's 164 other Solar Exalted out there, and it's their story too". To which the universal response was "great, go ST for them for a few months, call us when you need us".

Rutee
2008-03-07, 07:12 PM
There's an old thread on RPG.net about an Exalted game that was run almost like that, the line that broke the players was "There's 164 other Solar Exalted out there, and it's their story too". To which the universal response was "great, go ST for them for a few months, call us when you need us".

...Someone /actually pulled that crap/? And the players did not rise up and /slay that guy/? WTB indeed?

fendrin
2008-03-07, 07:57 PM
...Someone /actually pulled that crap/? And the players did not rise up and /slay that guy/? WTB indeed?

Indeed. I've walked out in the middle of a game session for less.
Oh and glad to see someone piked up on the WTB... :smalltongue:

Fhaolan
2008-03-07, 09:57 PM
...Someone /actually pulled that crap/? And the players did not rise up and /slay that guy/? WTB indeed?

Stupid thing is, I heard a game master say something very close to that in a tournament game once. It wasn't an Exalted game though. The system was Chill, and it was a 'run from the Zombies' scenario. The game master was absolutely convinced that the game was about the zombies, not the characters, and spent most of the timed session telling stories about the zombies overruning the countryside miles from where the characters were.

'course, he had shown up in full zombie makeup and everything, so we the players were already convinced he was round the twist.

So this kind of attitude isn't as rare as we would hope. :smallconfused:

Indon
2008-03-08, 03:08 AM
I disagree.

The narrative tells players, "Your characters are special because":

A) They are the viewpoint from which the story is told, just like Nick in The Great Gatsby, old sport. :smallwink:

B) They are the protagonists of the story.

C) This isn't necessarily true of every single narrative, but in a large number of stories the protagonists are the agents of change within the story.

How do those not boil down to, "The players are playing them," in a tabletop game?

Case in point, you have a player who wants to switch characters. His old character leaves the party for some reason (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PutOnABus) and the other players need never hear from him again, while another character enters the narrative (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JonasQuinn).

The narrative focus of characters in a tabletop RPG is solely based upon what names are written on the players' character sheets.

And Exalted isn't about 170-someodd Solar Exalts. There are _thousands_ more beings of significance on that world with which to construct a massive ensemble cast (and more than 170 Solars, really, even with the Abyssals and Infernals).

Narratively, of course, the players don't learn about them until they run into them (or hear of them in some way, etc), because it doesn't concern the names on their character sheets. But there is most definitely an aspect of the game about the world in which the characters live - or at least, there could be.

Rutee
2008-03-08, 03:19 AM
And Exalted isn't about 170-someodd Solar Exalts. There are _thousands_ more beings of significance on that world with which to construct a massive ensemble cast (and more than 170 Solars, really, even with the Abyssals and Infernals).

This is nitpicky, somewhat, but no. There are 10,000 DB, and in all honesty, a Solar is more important then any of one of them within the setting. They're called God Kings for a reason. And there are not even 170 Solars in the Age of Sorrows. 300 Solar Shards to start with. The Deathlords stole 150, and gave 50 of those to the Yozis. Then they used the other 100 to make Deathkniggits.

And honestly, you're both arguing over nothing. He's not contesting that there /can/ be a world, merely that it generally only matters when the players can witness it in some way.

Incidentally, there was a Sentai RPG system that I can't quite recall the name of offhand that had players also make Evil Counterparts of their characters. One of the suggested interludes for after the main meat of the session was over included the Evil Counterparts discussing plans to attack the heroes, with a suggestion of bonus exp to someone if they came up with a plan for the GM to use.. XD

Xuincherguixe
2008-03-08, 03:44 AM
Incidentally, there was a Sentai RPG system that I can't quite recall the name of offhand that had players also make Evil Counterparts of their characters. One of the suggested interludes for after the main meat of the session was over included the Evil Counterparts discussing plans to attack the heroes, with a suggestion of bonus exp to someone if they came up with a plan for the GM to use.. XD

That's awesome! If I ever run a super hero game, I am definitely doing this.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-08, 07:52 AM
How do those not boil down to, "The players are playing them," in a tabletop game?

Case in point, you have a player who wants to switch characters. His old character leaves the party for some reason (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PutOnABus) and the other players need never hear from him again, while another character enters the narrative (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JonasQuinn).

The narrative focus of characters in a tabletop RPG is solely based upon what names are written on the players' character sheets.


For what its worth, this is exactly why I personally don't like switching characters in RPGs. I'll always do my level best to have the same PCs around at the end of a campaign as at the start.

Neon Knight
2008-03-08, 09:07 AM
How do those not boil down to, "The players are playing them," in a tabletop game?

Because if the players ceased to fulfill those roles, they would cease to be significant, regardless of the players continuing to play them. A railroading DM can make his DMNPC the primary focus of the story, instead of the players, and a bunch of lazy players can fail to fulfill the role of agents of change and protagonist by not doing anything. And a DM who constantly relates things happening outside the character's viewpoint could diminish of nullify their role as our viewpoint into the world. These are all examples of bad play, of course, which is why I believe DnD is a narrativist game at heart. By playing, you fulfill the narrativist mandate to a tee. Almost.

I'd also like to note that the simulationist definition of significant you provided earlier also requires "The players are playing them." Because PC characters owe their existence to the players. Thus, the only reason a PC character ever gets even a chance to do something significant is because, "The players are playing them." Thus it can be said that "The players are playing them," is a requirement for significance.

By the way, as a clarification, we are talking about OOC significance, right? Cause that's what Wizards and I are talking about. OOC significance, of course, does determine IC significance to some degree, in a narrative structure at least, but there are ways to set up a narrative styled game where in the game world the PCs can be of minor importance, but in the game entity itself the remain important.



Case in point, you have a player who wants to switch characters. His old character leaves the party for some reason (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PutOnABus) and the other players need never hear from him again, while another character enters the narrative (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JonasQuinn).

The narrative focus of characters in a tabletop RPG is solely based upon what names are written on the players' character sheets.


I just realized I left a tenant out in my above definition, and would like to thank you for reminding me. It is one of the most important ones, and I must have been very tired to have forgotten it completely.

D) You care about them as characters.

It is perfectly plausible to play a Mary-Sue esque character that nobody cares about and the DM barely acknowledges in game. Although siad character The player in your example obviously didn't care enough about his character to continue playing him, and thus he loses the mantles of viewpoint character, agent of change, and protagonist. However, if the other PCs refer to him constantly and want to see that character because they were interested in him and liked him, then he retains narrative significance and the DM should probably bring him back as an NPC.

In addition, the fact that the leaving PC is no longer followed or cared about is also a necessary sacrifice of the medium itself. In the Lord of the Rings, despite the fact that the party splits, you still follow all of the characters. If you did this in a DnD game, most players would start throwing things at you.

DMs don't like to run two games at once. Most hate it when the party splits. Players don't like sitting on their rears doing nothing. I'm willing to bet even simulationist players would rather be doing something, probably in their never ending quest for significance. :smalltongue: Following the leaving character would detract from the interactive nature of the game, which just cheeses off players in general.

That post might have lost some coherency in the two drafts I went through, so apologies in advance for errors.

Rutee
2008-03-08, 09:20 AM
Because if the players ceased to fulfill those roles, they would cease to be significant, regardless of the players continuing to play them. A railroading DM can make his DMNPC the primary focus of the story, instead of the players, and a bunch of lazy players can fail to fulfill the role of agents of change and protagonist by not doing anything. And a DM who constantly relates things happening outside the character's viewpoint could diminish of nullify their role as our viewpoint into the world. These are all examples of bad play, of course, which is why I believe DnD is a narrativist game at heart. By playing, you fulfill the narrativist mandate to a tee. Almost.


No, DnD is not narratavist. It can certainly be played that way, but it isn't designed to be. There are no systems that support such playing, and there previously has been only a cursory understanding of the concepts involved (Most notably in the way things are handwaved to make them easier for the PCs then they would otherwise be, like the CR system and the implicit guarantee that players face level-appropriate challenges). DnD is primarily gamist in design. Simply look at the number of rules that are there to support complex gameplay, compared to any other aspect of the game, and you'll likely agree.

Winterwind
2008-03-08, 09:35 AM
How do those not boil down to, "The players are playing them," in a tabletop game?

Case in point, you have a player who wants to switch characters. His old character leaves the party for some reason (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PutOnABus) and the other players need never hear from him again, while another character enters the narrative (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JonasQuinn).Ah, but usually the story would be tailored for the specific character. When a player wants to switch characters (which rarely happens, for the players too want to see the story's end), we tend to rather start a new story, with this character and either the other players' old characters, or new ones, as they prefer (which is why we don't use systems which create as wildly diverging character power levels as D&Ds level system). For this very reason, we also have, like, five campains running parallely to accomodate the fact that not always all players do show up - with a player missing, and thus his character missing, the story would lack a protagonist. And since stories are all about their protagonists, the story in question obviously could be continued at that point, which leads back to us having several campaigns/stories for the different configurations of players present.
So yeah, I would very much say roleplaying is all about the PCs and their specific stories...

I would also disagree that the characters have to be somehow special otherwise - if a player came up to me and said (s)he wanted to play a beggar, or a maid, or a corporate drone, or whatever utterly normal mortal with no special skills whatsoever, so be it, let's see how this normal mortal will act in the face of adventure. Anyone claiming normal mortals cannot have special and exciting stories to live through shall discuss that matter with Mr.Tolkien and his hobbits. :smallwink:

And finally (at the end, because it's a bit side-tracked, but I couldn't leave this uncommented):

And let's not forget that if I DO want to set up some mooks for players to push through, a couple battles without all that "gee, let's get to know these guys! Maybe these brutal thugs have feelings and we should interact with them like we're going for Best Picture!" crap (not to disparage all those groups out there who spend more time talking to your encounters and forcing your DM to play a shizophrenic than they do actually fighting), I still have to stat out a bunch of NPCs.Players not wanting to play mass-murdering monsters but actual people, with a functional moral system and a sense for life's value is crap? :smallconfused:

And no, statting NPCs is always optional. You could just as well make a rough estimate of the relevant stats in the very moment you roll the dice (which is what I do most of the time). Now, whether you find this practical or inconvenient is up to you and depends on your playing style (the more it is about tactical combat, the more statting them out may prove the way to go), but pre-determined stats are optional nevertheless.
As are all rules, for that matter. *gets stoned*

I find this kind of ironic, because so far, if I got the right impression from this debate, it was the narrativist side (i.e. my own) which was speaking in favour of stats for everyone...

Neon Knight
2008-03-08, 11:03 AM
No, DnD is not narratavist. It can certainly be played that way, but it isn't designed to be. There are no systems that support such playing, and there previously has been only a cursory understanding of the concepts involved (Most notably in the way things are handwaved to make them easier for the PCs then they would otherwise be, like the CR system and the implicit guarantee that players face level-appropriate challenges). DnD is primarily gamist in design. Simply look at the number of rules that are there to support complex gameplay, compared to any other aspect of the game, and you'll likely agree.

I meant in terms of it supports a story more than it does a perfect (near perfect, or a sperfect as humanely possible, whatever-adjective-you-want-here) simulation of a fantasy world. I wasn't specifically referring to GSN theory. I end up using GSN terminology because everybody else does. When in Rome, you know. But I don't abscribe to it myself.

Indon
2008-03-08, 12:05 PM
This is nitpicky, somewhat, but no. There are 10,000 DB, and in all honesty, a Solar is more important then any of one of them within the setting. They're called God Kings for a reason.

I was only referring to a handful of the most powerful dragon-blooded, to be honest, alongside all the other forms of Exalts (there are what, 7 types of being called "Exalt" in the game?), powerful deities, elementals, demons and fair folk, scavenger lords with _particularly_ potent 1'st age relics, Dragon Kings in positions of significance, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. My point is, Creation is not only freaking big, but full of happenings.



And there are not even 170 Solars in the Age of Sorrows. 300 Solar Shards to start with. The Deathlords stole 150, and gave 50 of those to the Yozis. Then they used the other 100 to make Deathkniggits.
Really? I imagine that's described in the Abyssal book, which I haven't really bothered to read.


Because if the players ceased to fulfill those roles, they would cease to be significant, regardless of the players continuing to play them.

There are entire games in which players are not expected to accomplish much of signficance, even in the context of the game - an example being Kobolds Ate My Baby.


A railroading DM can make his DMNPC the primary focus of the story, instead of the players,
But then the DM is just acting as another player.


And a DM who constantly relates things happening outside the character's viewpoint could diminish of nullify their role as our viewpoint into the world.
That... would be odd. That sort of thing doesn't seem to me to be indicative of actually playing a roleplaying game.


I'd also like to note that the simulationist definition of significant you provided earlier also requires "The players are playing them." Because PC characters owe their existence to the players. Thus, the only reason a PC character ever gets even a chance to do something significant is because, "The players are playing them."
I can theoretically make an NPC with the same qualities and they can be simulationistically significant.


By the way, as a clarification, we are talking about OOC significance, right?
Simulationist significance is significance in the context of the game world - it IS in-character significance.


However, if the other PCs refer to him constantly and want to see that character because they were interested in him and liked him, then he retains narrative significance and the DM should probably bring him back as an NPC.
Persistence of things in the game world, even when they are no longer necessarily part of the plot, seems to be a simulationist measure. So would the PC's RP'ing players that aren't neccessarily _their_ characters, like in the suggestion Rutee gave (which really, is a pretty nifty idea all around). One such measure I particularly like is having multiple gaming groups in the same universe - the players can see the impacts made by their other alter-egos better in a world that you strive to make believable, consistent, and persistent.


That post might have lost some coherency in the two drafts I went through, so apologies in advance for errors.

No problem, I think both of our original points are petering out into mutual understanding.


I wasn't specifically referring to GSN theory. I end up using GSN terminology because everybody else does. When in Rome, you know. But I don't abscribe to it myself.

Yeah, I use it for the reason that I see no better way to describe an RPG's meta-system.

Artanis
2008-03-08, 12:30 PM
(there are what, 7 types of being called "Exalt" in the game?)
*thinks*
Solar, Lunar, Sidereal, Abyssal, Dragonblood, Alchemical, Infernal...yup, seven :smallbiggrin:

Winterwind
2008-03-08, 12:52 PM
That... would be odd. That sort of thing doesn't seem to me to be indicative of actually playing a roleplaying game.A gamemaster I play with likes to make short interludes like that, making a short scene cut to a scene where no actual PCs are - describing the thoughts or deeds of some to-be-relevant NPC in a manner sufficiently cryptic to not be directly understandable to the players, but sufficiently revealing to raise the players' interest and make them wonder what, exactly, these strange words or deeds might mean, who this unknown NPC might be and what importance he will have to the story they are living through. For example, he might start a campaign with something like: "The old man looks around for a last time around the house he had called home for so many years. Now that the moment has come, he hesitates, frightened by the burdens of the day to come, trembling at the door step, the torn letter in his hand. "It has started", it reads in his former friend's writing. No, he has waited for far too long already. He turns around and goes north, without ever looking back."
That was probably even longer than what he would have done; but it provides a rather atmospheric entrance into the campaign, and the players can appreciate it when the puzzle elements start falling into place (even though their characters, obviously, cannot).
At any rate, while it is taking up a point of view outside of the PCs' one, I hardly would say it diminuishes immersion, atmosphere or fun for anyone involved. Contrariwise.
Though I won't deny that a gamemaster doing it constantly, as was Kasrkin's original point, most definitely would.


I can theoretically make an NPC with the same qualities and they can be simulationistically significant.

Simulationist significance is significance in the context of the game world - it IS in-character significance.So... do you think either PCs or NPCs need to be simulationistically significant?
Because, as I expressed in my last post (to which I was kinda hoping to get some feedback :smallfrown: ), I don't. The only thing required, in my humble opinion, is for them to be narrativistically significant, by which I mean that it is clearly their story that is being told - no matter whether this story impacts anything beyond their own life.

horseboy
2008-03-08, 01:47 PM
I find this kind of ironic, because so far, if I got the right impression from this debate, it was the narrativist side (i.e. my own) which was speaking in favour of stats for everyone...Holy crap IT LIVES!! Where you been hiding? :smallamused:

Eh, way I'm reading it is some people require them to have stats to be able to narrate them. Kinda sorta in a "Do we think in words or images" debate, only "Do you think in stats or ideas".
A gamemaster I play with likes to make short interludes like that, making a short scene cut to a scene where no actual PCs are - describing the thoughts or deeds of some to-be-relevant NPC in a manner sufficiently cryptic to not be directly understandable to the players, but sufficiently revealing to raise the players' interest and make them wonder what, exactly, these strange words or deeds might mean, who this unknown NPC might be and what importance he will have to the story they are living through. For example, he might start a campaign with something like: "The old man looks around for a last time around the house he had called home for so many years. Now that the moment has come, he hesitates, frightened by the burdens of the day to come, trembling at the door step, the torn letter in his hand. "It has started", it reads in his former friend's writing. No, he has waited for far too long already. He turns around and goes north, without ever looking back."
That was probably even longer than what he would have done; but it provides a rather atmospheric entrance into the campaign, and the players can appreciate it when the puzzle elements start falling into place (even though their characters, obviously, cannot).
At any rate, while it is taking up a point of view outside of the PCs' one, I hardly would say it diminuishes immersion, atmosphere or fun for anyone involved. Contrariwise.Interesting, you don't usually see a whole lot of third person narration in RPG's.

Winterwind
2008-03-08, 02:08 PM
Holy crap IT LIVES!! Where you been hiding? :smallamused: I have always been here. :smallbiggrin:
Though admittedly the last few months were a bit stressful, which is why my posting became more sporadic (and mostly limited to the Other Games forum, for organisational stuff related with the two groups mentioned in my sig, and alike).
Got a bit better now though, and besides, when there is an interesting debate about roleplaying concepts which might prove insightful for my own games as well, of course I emerge! :smallamused:


Interesting, you don't usually see a whole lot of third person narration in RPG's.Indeed not. The aforementioned gamemaster generally employed various interesting tricks, like when we, not suspecting anything, arrive at the session, and he suddenly starts handing out completely different character sheets and starts playing a short (like, two hours or so) adventure taking place 500 years before our actual campaign in the location our usual characters are about to enter (except for one, all of the hand-out characters were killed by the being residing in said location, which our proper characters had to face and managed to defeat later on). Or (this will be more common, I guess), when something sudden happens, speaking in a casual tone and bursting into a scream in mid-sentence ("BOOM! THE DOOR BURSTS OPEN AND XXX APPEARS! WHAT DO YOU DO?!") - managing to catch us off guard and scaring the heck out of us every time. :smallbiggrin:
Oh, I learnt so much from him. :smallcool:

horseboy
2008-03-08, 02:26 PM
Indeed not. The aforementioned gamemaster generally employed various interesting tricks, like when we, not suspecting anything, arrive at the session, and he suddenly starts handing out completely different character sheets and starts playing a short (like, two hours or so) adventure taking place 500 years before our actual campaign in the location our usual characters are about to enter (except for one, all of the hand-out characters were killed by the being residing in said location, which our proper characters had to face and managed to defeat later on). Or (this will be more common, I guess), when something sudden happens, speaking in a casual tone and bursting into a scream in mid-sentence ("BOOM! THE DOOR BURSTS OPEN AND XXX APPEARS! WHAT DO YOU DO?!") - managing to catch us off guard and scaring the heck out of us every time. :smallbiggrin:
Oh, I learnt so much from him. :smallcool:
I could so totally see that working in Cthulthu, very Eternal Darkness.

Winterwind
2008-03-08, 02:30 PM
I could so totally see that working in Cthulthu, very Eternal Darkness.Oh, I can vouch for that one! :smallbiggrin:

Indon
2008-03-08, 04:37 PM
A gamemaster I play with likes to make short interludes like that, making a short scene cut to a scene where no actual PCs are - describing the thoughts or deeds of some to-be-relevant NPC in a manner sufficiently cryptic to not be directly understandable to the players, but sufficiently revealing to raise the players' interest and make them wonder what, exactly, these strange words or deeds might mean, who this unknown NPC might be and what importance he will have to the story they are living through.
Well, that's nifty. It's a fair storytelling feature, and I guess it might indeed be the kind of feature one sees in a narrative-heavy game.


So... do you think either PCs or NPCs need to be simulationistically significant?

No. I'm very much a believer in the possibility that someone could have fun being a normal person in a group of heroes, and that you could RP a group of commoners trying to struggle through mildly exceptional events, and that Jimmy Olsen does, in fact, have an interesting life.

I was just trying to distinguish between narrative and simulationistic significance in order to demonstrate how someone could play a character, and enjoy it, precisely because the character is not significant. So I didn't really respond to your point because it didn't have much bearing with what I was trying to convey, and I pretty much agree.

Though I guess if I'm to respond to any of it, it'll be on the point of simulationism and character stats.

You see, the nice thing about strong simulationist rules is that you don't need to precompile stats for something beforehand if there's an overall rule that exists to let you define something on-the-fly.

For a typical clumsy-yet-workable D20 example, I'll take NPC's. You suddenly need to compile a roll for something on the part of a completely ordinary person - you do not at all have stats for this guy written up.

The narrative way to do that is to just say whatever happens based on what you'd rather happen as DM, and not take the trouble to have the NPC go by the same rules as the players.

The simulationist way is to calculate about what the roll would be on the fly, then make it. So if your halfling commoner is on top of a fence and goblins attack, and suddenly needs to make a balance check, you think, "Well, this halfling's kinda mischevious, so probably a 12 in dex, with another +2 from race, and then probably 1 or 2 ranks in balance," and you come up with a +3 or +4 modifier (then you use the +4 modifier because you like halflings :P).

The D20 tools you use to determine that are the Standard Array, racial modifiers, and the skill system. And despite being very long on text, it doesn't take a DM familiar with those tools long to do it in their head.

So ultimately, simulationism is about not needing to precompile things like Random Kobold #4's chance to stabilize, but being able to realistically and quickly calculate it if the game calls for it, without the need for significant handwavery.

Mike_G
2008-03-08, 09:32 PM
The "narrative" versus "simulation" arguments are distorting my original point. There are times that I like a lot of rules to resolve situations, and time I think they are unwieldy and inappropriate.

If it involves things the PC's might be expected to do, I like nice, comprehensive, consistent rules. The hardness/hp for objects is great, because it's likely that the party may decide to hack at a door with a sword. Having a way to resolve this outside of a wild-ass guess by the DM is nice. Ditto for sneaking, climbing, grappling, etc. In this, I think 3.5 did a better job that previous editions.

If it doesn't involve the PC's, I think DM fiat is fine. I ignore the charts on how much magic should be for sale, and only put items I want to deal with in my world. My players learned, although it took a long time, and they still slip up occasionally, that every pair of magic bracers is not either armor or archery.

The rules were written largely to deal with PC actions, be those fighting, skill use, social encounters, and so on. Advancement in BAB, HP etc makes sense for people who go into danger as a profession. The Wizard will get better at fighting as he gains experience, just more slowly than the fighter. The rules more or less work for adventurers

The rules are very bad for simulating craftsmen, scholars, merchants, etc. These people would not necessarily get any better at hitting people or taking damage as they got better at their primary jobs. The concept of the "0 level" NPC from 1e is valid for a librarian, and shouldn't preclude his having lots of knowledge skills. A diplomat may have a very high Diplomacy and Sense Motive, but still be less dangerous in a knife fight than a Goblin Warrior.

Different rules for NPCs just makes sense from either viewpoint. Narratively, the Diplomat should fear the Orc grunt in a physical fight, but confidently succeed at his social skills. Simulationally, the rules should reflect that same realism, and rules that simulate a great orator being able to beat up a squad of soldiers in order to justify his ranks in Oratory pretty much fails at simulating any believable world.

Winterwind
2008-03-09, 05:54 AM
No. I'm very much a believer in the possibility that someone could have fun being a normal person in a group of heroes, and that you could RP a group of commoners trying to struggle through mildly exceptional events, and that Jimmy Olsen does, in fact, have an interesting life.

I was just trying to distinguish between narrative and simulationistic significance in order to demonstrate how someone could play a character, and enjoy it, precisely because the character is not significant. So I didn't really respond to your point because it didn't have much bearing with what I was trying to convey, and I pretty much agree.Ah, I see. Nevermind, then. :smallsmile:


The narrative way to do that is to just say whatever happens based on what you'd rather happen as DM, and not take the trouble to have the NPC go by the same rules as the players.

The simulationist way is to calculate about what the roll would be on the fly, then make it. So if your halfling commoner is on top of a fence and goblins attack, and suddenly needs to make a balance check, you think, "Well, this halfling's kinda mischevious, so probably a 12 in dex, with another +2 from race, and then probably 1 or 2 ranks in balance," and you come up with a +3 or +4 modifier (then you use the +4 modifier because you like halflings :P).Interesting take on on what "simulationist" means in this context. Personally, I use both approaches, choosing between them on a case-to-case-basis, depending on what seems to lead to a more interesting situation, whether the players will have to roll dice themselves depending on what happens, the likelihood and significance of failure, and alike.
But yeah, being able to estimate stats quickly sure is useful. :smallbiggrin:


The "narrative" versus "simulation" arguments are distorting my original point. There are times that I like a lot of rules to resolve situations, and time I think they are unwieldy and inappropriate.My actual intent was to voice support for your notion of roleplaying games always revolving entirely around PCs. I merely wanted to add another facette to it, namely that the game is centred upon the PCs not only rules-wise, but also from a narrative point of view, because RPG adventures are, essentially, stories constructed in such a way as to specifically revolve around the PCs. Hence, the PCs always will be the focus of attention.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-09, 07:53 AM
The "narrative" versus "simulation" arguments are distorting my original point. There are times that I like a lot of rules to resolve situations, and time I think they are unwieldy and inappropriate.

I think the point is that the "simulationists" (and good lord that term has changed its meaning so many times over the years it's not funny) are arguing that you need rules for things the PCs are never going to do, because the rules define the world they live in, while the "narrativists" (also changed its meaning about a million times) are arguing that you only need rules for things the PCs are going to do, because it's "their story".

Essentially I think it's the same point you're making, it's just that people are making an effort to phrase it in terms of GNS theory (under which both, ironically, would count as Simulationists).


If it involves things the PC's might be expected to do, I like nice, comprehensive, consistent rules. The hardness/hp for objects is great, because it's likely that the party may decide to hack at a door with a sword. Having a way to resolve this outside of a wild-ass guess by the DM is nice. Ditto for sneaking, climbing, grappling, etc. In this, I think 3.5 did a better job that previous editions.

Absolutely. Further to this point, though, while the hardness/HP rules are great for adjudicating PCs hacking through doors with swords, they completely suck for actually simulating any kind of real-world working with materials. By the rules, picks aren't as good at cutting through rock as Greataxes, and a handaxe chops wood significantly less well than a Longspear.

Good rules for adventuring, crappy rules for simulating a world, which is exactly as it should be.


If it doesn't involve the PC's, I think DM fiat is fine. I ignore the charts on how much magic should be for sale, and only put items I want to deal with in my world. My players learned, although it took a long time, and they still slip up occasionally, that every pair of magic bracers is not either armor or archery.

And, of course, those charts clearly aren't in the game for simulation reasons, they're there for balance reasons, to limit the amount of magic PCs can buy to WBL-appropriate level. Again, they actually suck as a way of simulating what sorts of magical items will be available in a particular area, because they assume that the market value of an item is directly related to its in-game effectiveness when actually a simple Wand of Create Food and Water would be one of the most valuable items on the planet. I mean really, if you had to choose between a weapon that hit more often, or an object that allowed you to sustain an army in a desert indefinitely and without supply lines, which would you pick?


The rules were written largely to deal with PC actions, be those fighting, skill use, social encounters, and so on. Advancement in BAB, HP etc makes sense for people who go into danger as a profession. The Wizard will get better at fighting as he gains experience, just more slowly than the fighter. The rules more or less work for adventurers

The rules are very bad for simulating craftsmen, scholars, merchants, etc. These people would not necessarily get any better at hitting people or taking damage as they got better at their primary jobs. The concept of the "0 level" NPC from 1e is valid for a librarian, and shouldn't preclude his having lots of knowledge skills. A diplomat may have a very high Diplomacy and Sense Motive, but still be less dangerous in a knife fight than a Goblin Warrior.

Different rules for NPCs just makes sense from either viewpoint. Narratively, the Diplomat should fear the Orc grunt in a physical fight, but confidently succeed at his social skills. Simulationally, the rules should reflect that same realism, and rules that simulate a great orator being able to beat up a squad of soldiers in order to justify his ranks in Oratory pretty much fails at simulating any believable world.

The problem is that different people find different things believable. A lot of people assume that the rules are the literal reality of the game-world, and find the idea of a great orator being "low level" completely unbelievable.

horseboy
2008-03-09, 12:44 PM
The problem is that different people find different things believable. A lot of people assume that the rules are the literal reality of the game-world, and find the idea of a great orator being "low level" completely unbelievable.You know I'm surprised they never "homebrewed" a Non-Combatant Class with no weapon proficiencies, BAB progression or hit points, just skill points.

Well, that or just play a game where level is independent of weapon skill and hit points.

fendrin
2008-03-09, 12:47 PM
Just a quick thought... games shouldn't be PC focussed per se. They should be player focussed.

RPGs are a balance of storytelling and simulating a realistic world.
Above all, though, they are games. They are RPGs, not RPSs.

The only bad game is one that the players do not enjoy. Depending on the players, more storytelling or more simulation creates more enjoyment. There is no 'one true balance point' between them.

Every system must choose where along the storytelling/simulation spectrum they want to be. Too far in the storytelling direction and the DM might as well just write a book. Too far into the simulation direction and the DM needs a computer to keep track of it all.

Balance is key, with DMs being able to 'push' the system somewhat in either direction.

Morty
2008-03-09, 12:58 PM
You know I'm surprised they never "homebrewed" a Non-Combatant Class with no weapon proficiencies, BAB progression or hit points, just skill points.


Who said they didn't? That's an idea I came up with soon after it became sure 4ed will be even more PC-focued than 3ed. And if I came up with it, I'm sure others did so as well.

Winterwind
2008-03-09, 01:28 PM
Too far in the storytelling direction and the DM might as well just write a book. Why the DM? Storytelling can just as well be accomplished collectively, with the players being encouraged to take over a lot of the decisions, especially those regarding their own character (in a freeform group I play in the gamemaster doesn't state "you succeed/fail at your attempt", instead he asks "do you think your character is good enough to succeed at your attempt?"); and in fact, there doesn't even need to be a designated gamemaster, if the storytelling duties are spread amongst all participants equally.


Balance is key, with DMs being able to 'push' the system somewhat in either direction.Here, on the other hand, I fully agree (though I would dispute it is solely the gamemaster's job to make sure the group ends up in their sweet spot) - each group has to find the exact balance between storytelling and simulation they consider the most fun.

Yahzi
2008-03-09, 01:55 PM
The world doesn't necessarily revolve around the PCs, but the game does. It always has.
When only PCs can be brought back from the dead, then the world revolves around them.

The defeat of death is traditionally the prerogative of the gods. Making only the players have this power is making the players gods.

If the only kind of game D&D can offer is "The Gods on Earth," then it should start at epic levels, and just toss out the rest of the stuff.


And the world beyond the party needs no mechanics at all.
Then why do NPCs have hit points? Why not just have them fall down when the DM thinks the PCs have hit them enough?


Stuff beyond eye and ear shot of the PCs can and should be resolved by DM fiat.
You know, that's one style of gaming. It's not the only style, and not everyone likes it, and besides, not all DMs are good at winging an entire world. Some of us DMs like to have a little help. That's why we buy books and stuff. For help on designing an entire world that makes sense and yet has magic.

Given your attitude, one might as well assume that NPCs don't have magic until they are fighting the players. Which is another way of saying the NPCs exist solely to be killed by the PCs.

Which is where we came in.... :smalltongue:

fendrin
2008-03-09, 01:59 PM
Why the DM? Storytelling can just as well be accomplished collectively, with the players being encouraged to take over a lot of the decisions, especially those regarding their own character (in a freeform group I play in the gamemaster doesn't state "you succeed/fail at your attempt", instead he asks "do you think your character is good enough to succeed at your attempt?"); and in fact, there doesn't even need to be a designated gamemaster, if the storytelling duties are spread amongst all participants equally. Ok bad example. You are right, the hypothetical book could be written by the entire group, not just the DM.


Here, on the other hand, I fully agree (though I would dispute it is solely the gamemaster's job to make sure the group ends up in their sweet spot) - each group has to find the exact balance between storytelling and simulation they consider the most fun. Ultimately it is the DMs choice because it is a matter of how the DM runs the game. A good DM, however, will be attentive to the desires of the players.

Winterwind
2008-03-09, 02:19 PM
Then why do NPCs have hit points? Why not just have them fall down when the DM thinks the PCs have hit them enough?I don't mean to put words into Mike_G's mouth, but I'm pretty sure he actually meant "the world beyond the part of the world currently interacting with the party needs no mechanics at all". :smallwink:


Given your attitude, one might as well assume that NPCs don't have magic until they are fighting the players. Which is another way of saying the NPCs exist solely to be killed by the PCs.

Which is where we came in.... :smalltongue:Why? All he says (in my understanding, at least) is that you do not need to roll dice to determine whether the BBEG succeeds in the dark ritual, to erase the consequences of which is going to be the main plot of the forthcoming campaign; the gamemaster can just decree the BBEG's magic is effective in this instance, where no PCs are around to stop or otherwise interact with him. The mechanical representation of his magic becomes relevant only later on, when he is actually fighting the PC party.
So, no PC presence = magic, but no mechanics for that magic.
PC presence = magic with mechanics for that magic.
I apologise to Mike_G if this should not have been a fair representation of his point of view.


Ultimately it is the DMs choice because it is a matter of how the DM runs the game. A good DM, however, will be attentive to the desires of the players.This, I guess, depends on the type of group. I believe it was Tormsskull (sorry if it was someone else) who posted in some thread long ago that there are two types of groups: Type A where the gamemaster declares he has the intent of running a game, and players join him as they wish, or type B where a group of players meet and decide only then who amongst them is going to be the gamemaster, and how the game is supposed to be run. In the latter type of group, the players are more likely to have more to say about how the game will end up.

Yahzi
2008-03-09, 02:52 PM
Why? All he says (in my understanding, at least) is that you do not need to roll dice to determine whether the BBEG succeeds in the dark ritual,
The argument was never about that. The idea that DMs want to sit around rolling for an entire town of NPC's profession checks is a straw man.

The real argument is when the players stop for a minute and actually think about the powers they wield. If their cleric is the only person in the whole world who can remove disease, then he isn't Carl the Cleric, he's Jesus. If the player is the only person in the world who can cast Mage Hand (a 0th level spell), he isn't Alf the Apprentice Wizard, he's Uri Gellar, the most famous psychic in the world who hobnobs with the rich and powerful.

Therefore, there must be other people who have these powers. But if other people have these powers, then why doesn't the local cleric cast remove disease on the barkeep's daughter?

Or, to take a recent example from a module I'm playing through, a few suspects have been implicated in a grisly murder. The local sheriff wants the party to investigate. My first question is, "Isn' t there a 3rd level priest in this town? Why doesn't he cast Zone of Truth and just bloody ask them?"

It is possible, of course, for an adroit DM to come up with an answer. The thing we are complaining about is that the standard, printed, published materials of D&D require every DM to be that adroit.

Winterwind
2008-03-09, 03:13 PM
I didn't get the impression this was what Mike_G was talking about, rather about the general focus of roleplaying games on the players and their characters. Otherwise I wouldn't have even entered this thread.

As for your complaints about D&D's consistency, well, I cannot comment on that. D&D is not on the list of tabletop RPGs I play.

Matthew
2008-03-09, 04:06 PM
Oh man, here we go again. "Strawman this", "strawman that". I cannot help but feel that people focusing on Strawmen should pay more attention to the arguments being made than their feeling that they are being misrepresented. Exaggerating an opponent's position is a rhetorical device, as are strawmen accusations.

Winterwind is quite right in what he is saying. The point in not having rules for stuff that occurs outside of what the Player Characters are doing is not so you can create an internally inconsistant world. The answer to the question "isn't there a Priest here willing and capable of casting Zone of Truth?" is quite obviously "no". Not having rules for NPCs doesn't automatically create an inconsistant game world and to suggest that it does is a fallacy (and indeed, for those who cannot help themselves but say so, a "strawman").

fendrin
2008-03-09, 07:53 PM
Exaggerating an opponent's position is a rhetorical device, as are strawmen accusations.

Ack, no.

Exaggerations and strawmen are NOT effective argument techniques (except as appeals to emotion, which hardly counts).

Instead of exaggerations, try taking an argument to it's logical conclusion. There is a BIG difference, and the latter is more effective.

As for strawmen... just don't. Strawman arguments are by definition fallacies.

Charity
2008-03-09, 08:00 PM
Straw man trouble...
I think I may have a solution
http://www.iarann.net/images/FlyingMonkeySecurity.png

fendrin
2008-03-09, 08:31 PM
Nice, Charity.
I prefer to burn effigies (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Lightmatter_burningman.jpg) though.

Rutee
2008-03-09, 08:35 PM
Ack, no.

Exaggerations and strawmen are NOT effective argument techniques (except as appeals to emotion, which hardly counts).

Instead of exaggerations, try taking an argument to it's logical conclusion. There is a BIG difference, and the latter is more effective.

As for strawmen... just don't. Strawman arguments are by definition fallacies.

I thought strawmen were effective on stupid people?

EvilElitest
2008-03-09, 10:26 PM
Hey, look, the PCs aren't unique, Edit: people like them are just rare.

Not according to worlds and monsters, which brings up another concern, if the world basically need these PCs to save them from the forces of nastiness, why is the semblance of society even standing?



Yes. But an elitist (notice the I where your word places an E) is usually considered a bad thing, a pejorative term, if you will. Frankly, you should probably check the spelling you are using to make sure it's an actual word. Add in the fact that you apparently also are evil, and, well, the fact that I couldn't call you an evil elitist without getting an official warning if it wasn't your screen name should tell you something about how the word is typically used.

I've already covered this, Elitest is a word i made up. Frankly, i don't normally consider an Elitist being a bad thing, as long as proof of your elite nature is show. dr. House, Blackadder, Holmes are all elitists. An elitest is somebody who acts elite, but doesn't show of the qualities of being elite, and is basically just another guy who is arrogant. Hence my screen name is deliberately chosen, i don't have the credentials to prove me elite, but i still have hte elitist nature. That doesn't make my points any less valid.
Personally, i don't care if you call me an elitist, i'll take is as a compliment.


Yes, some of them have PC classes. What I'm getting at is that classes are a bad way to represent NPCs, something that I'll argue with you only if you actually respond to my statement.
why? Classes are the source of people's power. People might not be totally aware of it, but the class indicates how they effect the world. In 3E, there are other wizards, clerics, fighters, swordsages and what not running around the world, and any PC could become just like any NPC if properly built, and visa versa. Hence, consistency.


I don't actually prefer Conan games, nor was that the point. The point was that in many of the sources that D&D takes inspiration from, heroes are powerful because they make themselves that way. That you're unsatisfied with such an explanation is reasonable but doesn't make you special in any way.
Why can only half a dozen guys make them self that way? Logically, if half a dozen guys can become super epic people, could other people in the world? In fact, if the population is at all large, there should be plenty of other people like them running around.


Like I said, make up one. The heroes are the descendents of a god, a la Baldur's gate. They are a collection of the elite of their races and countries, brought together by a quest that threatens the entire world. They're just lucky as heck.
1. If the game makes a mechanic, it should justify it. A baldur's gate explanation would be nice, i wouldn't personally like it, but it would be an explanation that is consistent, and verisimilitude will be maintained.
2. Your working under the assumption that every 4E D&D game is a bunch of dudes saving the world on epic quests. WOTC seems to agree, but didn't bother to make that an in game implement.
3. Why are they the only damn lucky people?


1&2: Does the word 'interact' and it's meaning that I'm using elude you? If you're not actually going to disagree, then acknowledge that we're agreeing. It's that simple.
No, i believe you missed my point. My point is, the only reason why the Kobold is less likely to make a big effect on the world is because of his low level, not because he lacks a name. As well as pointing out that if the world is consistent, things that effect the world in far away places can very well effect hte PCs subtly.


3. What's on screen is the only thing that's important. If what you said was just an accident of phrasing: anything that does not affect the PCs, change the conditions they're in, or in some way impacts the campaign world in a noticable way, doesn't belong in the game. Write a novel if you want to tell a story not involving the players, the game is for what happens to the PCs.
1. The fact that the world doesn't make sense logically would effect the PCs certainly
2. Or play a video game if i want the world's sole purpose is to entertain me. Hence my complaint



An elitist is usually elite, more importantly.

But seriously, /why are you posting to him/? He has extreme amounts of difficulty comprehending the written word, for whatever reason. You'll save yourself time, and not detract from your own argument at all, if you just stop paying attention to him.
1. Only the elite can deiced who are part of hte elite. As i don't think your elite, and you don't think i'm elite, your claim means nothing
2. The exact same thing can be said for you. Why do i post to you? YOu have extreme amounts of difficulty comprehending other people's options for what ever reason. I could most likely save my self time by ignoring your points, except i believe that everyone's option makes a difference, and thus warrants a response. If i ignored everything you said, i'd greatly weaken my argument, as there would be glaring holes in it



Well, there's been a lot of talking. I can't say I agree with all of it, but I'm not going to respond to it all right now. Instead, I'm going to provide an example of a really good simulationist subsystem in a D20 system. And to do that, I'm going to use...

World of Warcraft! got your attention.

Specifically, World of Warcraft : The Roleplaying Game, a d20 version of the Warcraft universe based on 3.5. Since the game world is ultimately that of a strategy game, an entire chapter (the last one) was dedicated to settlements.

The irony. Well played



Because some people actually think his opinion is worth something, which means he must be contested. The fact that he didn't even spell his name correctly (Yes, I am poisoning the well, though the water is already toxic) should tip everyone off to how much credence he should be given, but it doesn't. So people have to go around arguing against him because otherwise it will look like he's right.
Do you damn research. I spelled my name the way i wanted to, i've said several times that elitest is deliberate. The fact that you've evaded points, make untrue personal attacks, and tried to use user names as an indication of people's options and worth is extremly petty and pathetic. If you want a beef, counter me. Go ahead.


No, diplomacy wasn't built to break the game, it just does.
I was talking about 4E, but yeah, i never said 3E was perfect. I'm upset about the whole "If i ain't' broke, don't fix it" rule



The PC's are more important than the NPCs, otherwise the players would be playing the NPCs. I mean, who wants to play characters that aren't important?

The point is that NPCs can be as powerful mechanically and possibly as powerful in other ways. It is a totally cool option. Also, the PCs don't start out important, just above average, hence the term level one.



In a game where you gain levels, the PCs start off with the potential to become more important, but they already have something about them that sets them out from the crowd, or at least they should.

Maybe they'll fail; maybe they won't. But it is that potential that makes them PCs and the lack of potential that keeps 98% of NPCs just simple three or four word entries in the DM's notes.

The major NPCs should be played much more like PCs, but even they are limited - they should increase in level much more slowly than the PCs, if at all. The game is about the PCs because the PCs are the extraordinary characters we want to hear about.

Why would this make sense from an in game perspective? What makes them special? Why are they special? What did they do to posses these abilities? Why don't other people get these powers? Why why why, the key of consistency. WOTC and its defender's justification has generally been "Because it is dramatic" or "It is part of the Story", or "Because the PCs want to be powerful". Which points down to these responses
1. nothing stops you from being dramatic, having a good story, or being powerful if everyone follows the same rules. Nothing at all. Drama can be done in many ways, it is rather silly to assume the heroes needs to start out special to have drama, drama is generally open ended. A story line can be carried out while having people following hte same rules, hence FR. And the thing about the PCs being powerful, you can do that totally fine while having everyone follow the same rules. High levels, and all that. Which beings me to point number 2
2. People seem under the impression that a world is somehow less dramatic when people more powerful than the PCs are running around. Which seems to me personally to be a little silly. Nothing stops the PCs from doing their own dramatic things at low levels, and when the PCs live and gain levels and become powerful, they can handle things on par with the other high level dudes, or do their own epic stuff in different places of the world. And onto point 34
3. And the most annoying thing is this need to limit the play style to one htat reminds me very much of a video game. If you like playing super powerful people, fine, play high level characters. If you like playing games where you stand out and consistency be damned, nothing in the rules stops you from making all NPCs have NPC classes instead of PC classes. But the options shouldn't be limited to one play style


The fact that this 'nobody' is in the party in the first place is signicant. If I were a member of the adventuring party, I'd need a pretty good reason to lug around a commoner. Chances are they'll be more pain than gain, or get killed off in random fashion. It's the reason why someone like Indana Jones or Lara Croft (and to a lesser extent Sydney Fox) wouldn't bring a random non-guide member of the closest native village along for their latest adventure - they'll get killed and won't really help very much.
that varies actually. some groups might bring him about because they like him. Some won't be going into dangerous areas. Some might want a squire, or a cook, or a person to count the treasure. As for usefulness, he might be a smart thinker, just a crap fighter.



My impression of an EE-style game, based on the above:

Oh the straw man argument, never gets old.


Player1: "I attack the orc. I rolled a 15 for a total of 22."
DM: "You hit, roll damage"
Player1: "I rolled a 5 for a total of 13."
DM: "The orc falls to the ground, unconscious and bleeding."
Player2: "Ok, I'm next in the initiative. I'm going to..."
DM: "Hold on, there's a basketweaver in town, I have to roll his craft check. Oh, and a team of diplomats is negotiating with your king about trade policy. That's another half-dozen diplomacy checks, there's a civil war brewing in the next country over, so press gangs are forcing people to join the army, that's about 50 intimidate checks.. oh! there's a huge war halfway across the world, thats about 80,000 attack rolls, and 50,000 stabilization rolls... Oh, and the blood war, of course! How could I forget the blood war? Let's see, Infinite demons, infinite devils, so infinite attack rolls! Why don't you come back next week? I might be done by then."
Player1: "WTB?"
Player2: "Screw this. Hey, player1, I'm gonna start up a new game. you wanna play?"
Player1 "Sure why not, it can't be worse than this!"

No, i'd simply do all that before hand. Should the PCs change something with their actions, i'd just logically alter the events. Your working under the assumption that consistency somehow brings about incompetence.

An example of my games wasn when they slaughtered a band of orcs who i didn't originally intend to be a combat encounter. I knew that hte orcs were in fact mercenaries hired by a near by kingdom to raid the local country side and blame it on another kingdom. With this ruined, the PC unintentionally caused a war between the two kingdoms when the orcs bodies were found and traced back to kingdom one who hired them. The PCs didn't know they caused this, but it did effect them.





The rules are very bad for simulating craftsmen, scholars, merchants, etc. These people would not necessarily get any better at hitting people or taking damage as they got better at their primary jobs. The concept of the "0 level" NPC from 1e is valid for a librarian, and shouldn't preclude his having lots of knowledge skills. A diplomat may have a very high Diplomacy and Sense Motive, but still be less dangerous in a knife fight than a Goblin Warrior.
We don't need to change the entire system, we just need a better NPC system for Craftsmen. For example, the complete commoner does a pretty good job. Or i could just make logical classes for different types of crafters or artisans that make sense. People might then say "But your wasting space" however i respond to that by pointing out
1. The NPCs merchants/artisans ect will be effecting the world by producing goods, doing their jobs, creating objects and doing what they do. A merchant will have an effect on trade routs and goods, a blacksmith will create iron objects that will equip the locals, a minor magic user might create minor magical items that effect hte economy
2. If you want them to effect hte PCs, it can be consistent. A librarian won't have massive hit points that don't make sense, a local craftsmen will have limits on what he can produce, the merchant's abilities. will effect their abilty to sell things to hte PCs ect.
3. Logical consistent world. Never a bad thing


I think the point is that the "simulationists" (and good lord that term has changed its meaning so many times over the years it's not funny) are arguing that you need rules for things the PCs are never going to do, because the rules define the world they live in, while the "narrativists" (also changed its meaning about a million times) are arguing that you only need rules for things the PCs are going to do, because it's "their story".

1. It seems rather close minded to assume the PCs are never going to do certain things
2. The rules show how people effect the world around them, hence the world's need for rules


Just a quick thought... games shouldn't be PC focussed per se. They should be player focussed.

RPGs are a balance of storytelling and simulating a realistic world.
Above all, though, they are games. They are RPGs, not RPSs.

The only bad game is one that the players do not enjoy. Depending on the players, more storytelling or more simulation creates more enjoyment. There is no 'one true balance point' between them.

Every system must choose where along the storytelling/simulation spectrum they want to be. Too far in the storytelling direction and the DM might as well just write a book. Too far into the simulation direction and the DM needs a computer to keep track of it all.

Balance is key, with DMs being able to 'push' the system somewhat in either direction.
This basically is a video game approach, which is what people are generally complaining about.


I thought strawmen were effective on stupid people?
you speak from experience :smallwink:
from
EE

Matthew
2008-03-09, 11:45 PM
Ack, no.

Exaggerations and strawmen are NOT effective argument techniques (except as appeals to emotion, which hardly counts).

Instead of exaggerations, try taking an argument to it's logical conclusion. There is a BIG difference, and the latter is more effective.

As for strawmen... just don't. Strawman arguments are by definition fallacies.
I didn't say they were effective argument techniques (no need to shout, by the way). I said they were rhetorical devices and they are (the effectiveness of said rhetorical device not withstanding); the point, however, was that they were equivalently stupid, being none productive.

i.e.

Rhetorician A: "blah, blah, blah, *exaggerate opponent's position*
Rhetorician B: "That's a strawman, you suck!"

= No progress.

fendrin
2008-03-10, 02:41 AM
Oh the straw man argument, never gets old.
It's not a strawman. To quote you,
Do you damn research.
Nice grammar, by the way. :smallyuk:


No, i'd simply do all that before hand. Should the PCs change something with their actions, i'd just logically alter the events. Your working under the assumption that consistency somehow brings about incompetence. No I am assuming that ridiculous levels of attention to consistency brings about incompetence. Funny thing is that I am right...

Logically alter the events? Without rolling on a chart? How do you ever manage to keep it consistent? See, you don't need rules to tell you what is consistent. You can just use your best judgement and logic to keep things consistent.


An example of my games wasn when they slaughtered a band of orcs who i didn't originally intend to be a combat encounter. I knew that hte orcs were in fact mercenaries hired by a near by kingdom to raid the local country side and blame it on another kingdom. With this ruined, the PC unintentionally caused a war between the two kingdoms when the orcs bodies were found and traced back to kingdom one who hired them. The PCs didn't know they caused this, but it did effect them.
And what does that have to do with monsters dieing at 0 or rules-based consistency? The DM can do all of that without rolling a single die.

I did something similar in a game I ran. The PCs ran into an advance scouting party from army invading the region the party was traveling to. I don't bother rolling stabilization rolls for the mooks, but I decided that it was best for the game that a few of them would survive. The party had moved on, so they got away cleanly, so the army knew about the PCs, and thus sent an assassin squad against them. The party survived the assassination attempt, and got some valuable information from it.

And I did that all without rolling to stabilize the mooks.


This basically is a video game approach, which is what people are generally complaining about.
What? Since when does the player have control over how the gameplay functions in a video game? You make no sense. Or are you saying that a balance between the story and the simulation is like a video game? That doesn't make sense either. Or are you saying that RPGs are like video games because they are both games? That is a tautology, and thus meaningless.


I didn't say they were effective argument techniques (no need to shout, by the way). I said they were rhetorical devices and they are (the effectiveness of said rhetorical device not withstanding); the point, however, was that they were equivalently stupid, being none productive.

i.e.

Rhetorician A: "blah, blah, blah, *exaggerate opponent's position*
Rhetorician B: "That's a strawman, you suck!"

= No progress.

Rhetoric = The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively (http://www.answers.com/rhetoric&r=67). There fore calling them rhetoric implies they are 'effective' and 'persuasive', which they are not.

EDIT: I wasn't shouting, I was emphasizing. Sometimes I forget I can use formatting, so I use a single word in capitals. I think of shouting as everything in all caps, not just particular words. I despise shouting.

Matthew
2008-03-10, 06:01 AM
Rhetoric = The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively (http://www.answers.com/rhetoric&r=67). There fore calling them rhetoric implies they are 'effective' and 'persuasive', which they are not.

I am thoroughly conversant with the meaning of rhetoric, no need to link a dictionary definition from the internet. Do I really want to continue debating this semantic issue? Go on, then, I'll give it one more go. What is the purpose of constructing a Strawman? What's the purpose of identifying a Strawman? Is it not an attempt to convince the other side or bystanders of the merit of your arguments? The fact that these methods do not always work (and to be fair, sometimes they do) doesn't make them any less rhetorical devices and labelling them rhetorical does not imply anything absolute about their effectiveness. If you examine the rhetoric of ancient authors, I think you will find plenty of 'Strawmen'.



EDIT: I wasn't shouting, I was emphasizing. Sometimes I forget I can use formatting, so I use a single word in capitals. I think of shouting as everything in all caps, not just particular words. I despise shouting.

Maybe so, but it comes across as shouting.

Serenity
2008-03-10, 07:53 AM
You do realize, EE, that your specific examples work a lot more for our side? After the orcs died, did you roll Diplomacy checks for the two kingdoms to decide if war broke out? Or did you just decide that the war broke out because it was a fitting consequence to the actions? And you basically admitted that to make craftsmen make sense, it's best to put them on a system than the PCs--your solution is to 'create a new class' that has high skill ranks, but doesn't advance HP, BAB, etc., and implicitly didn't advance to its current level by killing monsters. That we shouldn't give the Librarian a whole bunch of combat prowess because it doesn't make sense is exactly our point.

Nor have you provided any information that says that the PCs and only the PCs are special people. The quotes you provided describe nothing more than the status quo: adventuring classes are rare, a cut above your average Joe Peasant, and even individual members of the local militia. Only a handful of people have the stubborn soul, inner fire, sheer chutzpah, etc. needed to follow that potential. Which, among a population of billions, could still be over a thousand people, and still just a drop in the bucket. 4e may be implementing altered mechanics for creating NPCs for ease of use of the DM, but that is not remotely the same thing as your claim that 4e is an instant gratification fest where PCs are gods among men from 1st level, unchallenged by anything.

fendrin
2008-03-10, 09:00 AM
I am thoroughly conversant with the meaning of rhetoric, no need to link a dictionary definition from the internet. Do I really want to continue debating this semantic issue?

I figured you were aware of the definition. I included it for the sake of certain... "intellects" on these forums who have a habit of glomming onto terminology and using it despite not having more than a vague and usually incorrect idea of what it means.

I don't want to argue a semantic issue. I just wanted to discourage people from using exaggeration and strawman arguments. I felt that you had (intentionally or otherwise) given them an air of legitimacy and effectiveness that I was trying to counteract. I'd say that has been done well enough.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-10, 11:58 AM
When only PCs can be brought back from the dead, then the world revolves around them.

Nowhere has anybody said that only PCs can be brought back from the dead. They have said that only high level characters can be brought back from the dead, that isn't the same thing.


The defeat of death is traditionally the prerogative of the gods. Making only the players have this power is making the players gods.

In Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and its companion game Dark Heresy, PCs get the PC-unique ability to avoid situations where they would otherwise die by spending "Fate Points". Only PCs get them.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is also famous for being the RPG in which "Rat Catcher" is a common starting profession for a player character. It's most certainly not a game where you play "gods".


If the only kind of game D&D can offer is "The Gods on Earth," then it should start at epic levels, and just toss out the rest of the stuff.

So let me get this right. Your argument runs as follows:

1) Resurrection in 4th edition will be much rarer in 4th edition than 3rd. It will be restricted, pretty much, to Epic Level PCs.
2) Since Epic Level PCs are the only PCs who get resurrection, it follows that only PCs get resurrection, and that therefore PCs are gods.
3) Since PCs are gods, the game should just start at Epic Level and have done with it.


Then why do NPCs have hit points? Why not just have them fall down when the DM thinks the PCs have hit them enough?

Again this is the "prescription versus description" problem.

NPCs do not "have hit points". They just use the hit point system to decide when they die if they fight the PCs.

Seriously, folks, if you're assuming that NPCs live their lives by the game rules all the time, where do you start drawing the line? Do you start your world building by statting out the Gods of Good and Evil and making them fight, then basing the resulting setting on the outcome? Do you decide every major war in your world history by breaking out the minis and fighting all the battles? There must come a point where you just say "screw it" and just make up the results you want.


You know, that's one style of gaming. It's not the only style, and not everyone likes it, and besides, not all DMs are good at winging an entire world. Some of us DMs like to have a little help. That's why we buy books and stuff. For help on designing an entire world that makes sense and yet has magic.

Given your attitude, one might as well assume that NPCs don't have magic until they are fighting the players. Which is another way of saying the NPCs exist solely to be killed by the PCs.

Which is where we came in.... :smalltongue:

It's one style of gaming, but the alternative style of gaming is totally unworkable. Either you just have the rest of the world judged on DM Fiat, or you spend your entire game session rolling 4000 stabilization checks for people fighting in a battle on the other side of the world.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-10, 12:28 PM
The argument was never about that. The idea that DMs want to sit around rolling for an entire town of NPC's profession checks is a straw man.

Except that it isn't, because it's the *actual* consequences of what people are arguing. People keep saying that it's wrong to assume that the rules are only there to represent things the PCs try to do, or things people try to do to the PCs, people are, in fact, trying to say that the rules are supposed to allow you to *simulate a consistent world* and that more, simulating a consistent world is *impossible* if you do *not* use a consistent set of rules.

This *does* in fact mean that you have to roll a Craft check for everybody in town, or at least assume they Take Ten.


The real argument is when the players stop for a minute and actually think about the powers they wield. If their cleric is the only person in the whole world who can remove disease, then he isn't Carl the Cleric, he's Jesus. If the player is the only person in the world who can cast Mage Hand (a 0th level spell), he isn't Alf the Apprentice Wizard, he's Uri Gellar, the most famous psychic in the world who hobnobs with the rich and powerful.

You're falling into the fallacy of the excluded middle here. You're saying that you must have a world in which either everybody can do what the PCs can do, or in which the PCs are the only people in the world who can do what they can do.

It is entirely possible to imagine a setting between these two extremes. One in which, for example, Wizards are very rare, but their existence is generally accepted. In this case an apprentice wizard will be unusual, but they wouldn't be world famous. Look at it like surgeons in the real world. It's not like every single medical student is world famous for their amazing healing powers, but it's not like you expect to find a specialist neurosurgeon in every village inn.


Therefore, there must be other people who have these powers. But if other people have these powers, then why doesn't the local cleric cast remove disease on the barkeep's daughter?

Because it's a third level spell, and the odds of a local temple having a fifth level cleric in it is minimal?

Again, you're assuming that any given skill or ability must be either totally unique or utterly commonplace with no middle ground.


Or, to take a recent example from a module I'm playing through, a few suspects have been implicated in a grisly murder. The local sheriff wants the party to investigate. My first question is, "Isn' t there a 3rd level priest in this town? Why doesn't he cast Zone of Truth and just bloody ask them?"

It is possible, of course, for an adroit DM to come up with an answer. The thing we are complaining about is that the standard, printed, published materials of D&D require every DM to be that adroit.

And you know what would be a really really good way to solve that problem?

Guess. Go on. Guess.

That's right, you could get rid of the assumption that NPCs automatically follow PC rules.

Suddenly: ta daa! No, of course our village priest isn't a powerful wielder of magic, that would be stupid, we'd never need to know hunger or sickness again if that were the case. There's some people out there who we call "clerics" who can do that sort of thing, but they're rare and unusual. What, you mean you are one? Great, can you go and solve this murder for us...

ShadowSiege
2008-03-11, 12:15 AM
If the player is the only person in the world who can cast Mage Hand (a 0th level spell), he isn't Alf the Apprentice Wizard, he's Uri Gellar, the most famous psychic in the world who hobnobs with the rich and powerful.

*WARNING! TANGENT*
Congratulations! You fail! Uri Gellar isn't a psychic, he's a fraud. All he does is make Bluff (misdirection), Sense Motive (cold reading) and Sleight of Hand checks, if we're going with the D&D theme. The wizard on the other hand is using actual magic.


Therefore, there must be other people who have these powers. But if other people have these powers, then why doesn't the local cleric cast remove disease on the barkeep's daughter?

Or, to take a recent example from a module I'm playing through, a few suspects have been implicated in a grisly murder. The local sheriff wants the party to investigate. My first question is, "Isn' t there a 3rd level priest in this town? Why doesn't he cast Zone of Truth and just bloody ask them?"

Because spells cost money. Lots of money. More money than most people make in a long time according to the DMG. It seems that any caster in any D&D world is out-and-out a money grubbing bastard with a heart made of cold iron, unless they're the PCs. It's a multiverse-wide conspiracy to keep the masses downtrodden, really.

horseboy
2008-03-11, 11:32 AM
Because spells cost money. Lots of money. More money than most people make in a long time according to the DMG. It seems that any caster in any D&D world is out-and-out a money grubbing bastard with a heart made of cold iron, unless they're the PCs. It's a multiverse-wide conspiracy to keep the masses downtrodden, really.Now that I can agree with. Power to the Proletariat! Oh, wait, they'll just fireball them if they rise up against the aristocracy. Yeah, sucks to be them.

fendrin
2008-03-11, 12:51 PM
Now that I can agree with. Power to the Proletariat! Oh, wait, they'll just fireball them if they rise up against the aristocracy. Yeah, sucks to be them.

Bah, just dominate the figurehead leaders. That way the plebes think they have independence, but are really subservient to the magocracy. If the plebes revolt, just dominate the new leaders. That's why smart mages are always the power behind the throne.

EvilElitest
2008-03-13, 08:07 PM
It's not a strawman. To quote you,
Nice grammar, by the way. :smallyuk:


Claiming somebody plays some way in a style like that is a strawman argument. Its putting untrue facts into my mouth. Bad form


No I am assuming that ridiculous levels of attention to consistency brings about incompetence. Funny thing is that I am right...

1. Fun fact, claiming you are right doesn't make it so
2. In order to prove that, your going to need to demonstrate said incompetence
3. Consistency doesn't bring about incompetence, it brings about a logical world. Bad DMs bring about incompetence, that that is hardly the system's fault.


Logically alter the events? Without rolling on a chart? How do you ever manage to keep it consistent? See, you don't need rules to tell you what is consistent. You can just use your best judgement and logic to keep things consistent.
1. Um, yeah i don't need a chart to figure out how the PCs actions will alter a world
2. I do however need the rules and the game design to support the possibility of consistency. Which from all indications, they only support a very video game like style (not WoW in particular, mind you) of the world only existing around the PCs.



And what does that have to do with monsters dieing at 0 or rules-based consistency? The DM can do all of that without rolling a single die.

Here it is, why don't the PCs die at 0? Special powers, uber magics, what is it? They aren't chosen ones, they are god spawn, they aren't special for any sort of reasons other than "Oh look, they are the heros". If the PCs are reduced to the negatives, they have options, it isn't game over. They can be healed, they can be stabilized, they can be helped. Same options should exist for other people as well. 4E is taking the assumption that all non PCs are enemies and thus bothering to give them the same stats or with consistency isn't worth the time. Should a foe get reduced to the negatives, it makes sense for them to be healed, to stand up, to not be out of the fight. If such options aren't available, then they die, no biggie, who cares.


I did something similar in a game I ran. The PCs ran into an advance scouting party from army invading the region the party was traveling to. I don't bother rolling stabilization rolls for the mooks, but I decided that it was best for the game that a few of them would survive. The party had moved on, so they got away cleanly, so the army knew about the PCs, and thus sent an assassin squad against them. The party survived the assassination attempt, and got some valuable information from it.

And I did that all without rolling to stabilize the mooks.

1. Um, that isn't the issue here. This is about consistency
2. But on the subject of the stabilization, i don't think they should simply escape simply because they did. They should escape if they are able to escape, if they can't get away, then the PCs are effective as keeping these things quite

What? Since when does the player have control over how the gameplay functions in a video game? You make no sense. Or are you saying that a balance between the story and the simulation is like a video game? That doesn't make sense either. Or are you saying that RPGs are like video games because they are both games? That is a tautology, and thus meaningless.
sign.


Anyways back on topic


I'm going to bump the issue slightly and compare 4E to video games in general, not specifically MMOs

Now a while ago people were saying how 4E was far too anime, and i think that is rather unfair. I think 4E is more like general video games


Now i'm going to just bring up one single issue, and this is the NPC/PC realtionship and world consistency/mechanics vs. fluff

Now in a video game the world literally revolves around you. Everything is focused upon you the PC(s). You are special, unique, god like, one of a kind (except MMOs but same idea) ect. The world is built around you, nothing gets solved without your help, nothing changes unless you do, nobody else (other than other players) have similar powers or abilities. Basically, you are the only person in the world with your powers who can get things down. Without you the world would never change. In WOW or Legend of Zelda, nobody other than you really gets stuff accomplished (this isn't quite true for WOW but still)
The world bends backward to accommodate you. Not only does it not change if you don't help it, the world is specially tailored to suit your needs. Be it special abilities, method to obtain something, or strangely convenient world, everything works out for you. the world's luck is really looking out for you, need a password, hey those guys are talking about it outside. Need your weapons back, don't worry, the NPCs won't take them and use them for their own use, they will just leave them in a near by chest. Hey, the bad guy's big weak point has a shiny light over it. Oh my god, just when i need a special item the path that was blocked until then opens. You get the idea. You never have to really act like your in a realistic world because the world obeys you, every time you need something it accommodates, it is like a very loving teacher who guides you through every problem (real life is that teacher who secretly hates you and loves to see you suffer).

In video games for obvious reasons, you have very limited freedom. In assassin's creed i have only four ways to get information on my target (beat his best friend until he tells me information then shank him, listen to dudes form 15 yards away, pick pockets and do odd jobs for my own men before they tell me crucial information). Rather simplistic , but hte game doesn't have you simple wander around the city talking to random people (screw that, i can't talk to anyone, or open doors or pick up money) or sneak into your target's house and slit his throat, informants be screwed. Now in a video game this is understandable, they simple can't pull that sort of deal off with current tech. However in D&D nothing limits you. But moving on

NPCs in video games are the worsts, they are freaking useless

They are ether quest givers, walking exp, mindless monsters, shop keepers or dudes who just randomly talk to you (not all the time but most of the time). They are often totally unaware of the world they live in, and never do the smart thing (for example, why doesn't the Hoard send troops to wipe out the low level monsters, they have level 55 guards in most of those cities. Or why don't the guards in Assassin's creed act so bloody stupid? Ect). They are often totally unable to defend themselves and will never never never help you in a useful way if they can help it (DAMN YOU NAVI, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, sob). They are basically, useless and exist for scenery or the plot. The villains never play smart ether, they don't do things like killing you in your sleep (if you sleep that is) or send all their guys at your at once. This isn't even hand waved most of the time, they just don't.

They are also normally very 2-D in personality, doubly so for the monsters (this is rather debatable, i mean Jade Empire and Baldur's Gate had some really cool NPCs) but most monsters are basically mindless mooks who swarm forward and let you bring them down. Like in the Lord of the Rings action games. This also goes along with inconsistent mechanics. What applies to you doesn't apply to other people. For example, in Assassin's creed, every enemy will go down one hit in a sword fight if you hit their blade enough times (strangely hitting them in the back doesn't work however?) but you can take like a few dozen hits before becoming near death. Or they fall from a two story building they are dead, you fall from a six story and your down half health. Bad example, this is true in D&D as well because of hit points, but Assassin's creed tries to be realistic so.....

Better example, in Lords of the Rings Two Towers you get these special powers that you can buy like flaming swords and magic arrows. But nobody else uses even the most basic of these and no explanation is offered. Or in any final Fantasy game, the powers you have as a black mage, white mage ect are never commonplace, you are normally hte only black mage, white mage, red mage ect. Also in Final Fantasy, i have maybe 69 Phoenix downs but i can't use any of them (tales of Smphotnia i'm looking at you as well, your cool plot regardless) or how in Fable nobody uses real spells. Often times monsters won't be a monster version of your class, but a monster who happen to cast their own spells. NPCs are generally simple lesser to PCs, they just suck. In battle of Middle earth Heros are better than entire armies of foot troops. Yes Freaking Pippin and Same are worth more than a few orc hoards. Ever notice in Fable why they are no other people who's physical appearance changes because of alignment. Final Fantasy, you are amazing because your the main character most of the time. Warcraft III with the heros, or WOW with the fact that NPCs are freaking useless in taht they often don't have powers that PCs do or are totally unable of solving their problems (your level 33, i'm level 18, what are you thinking?). In resident evil 4 the fact that they send you in alone on such an important mission with a single hand gun is absurd

Is this a bad thing on all video games? No, it can be excused, it is part of the genre. However D&D doesn't have those limitations and shouldn't fall for those problems. 3E was flawed yes, i'm not going to deny that, but it was (mostly) consistent, and "realistic" in its setting. Monster races were just monsters with classes, magic worked the same, everybody died at -9 not just PCs. It was a consistent, somewhat believable world, and that is being changed. It is becoming more flashy, more simplistic, less consistent, and more focused upon the video game ideal of "the world literally, not figurativlly revolves around the PCs", this lead to


The game becoming designed and focused upon a video game style of playing


In a video game, the world itself exist for the sole purpose of appealing to the PCs. Consistency is normally considered unimportant in a video game, the world exists to please the player. When i play Assassin's creed, the world revolves around me. Why are these hay stacks in the perfect places for my jumps? Why do the guards always forget about me when hid, and never notice me in a crowd? Why doesn't anybody try to trip me when i run as i'm a known killer? Or if we focus on mechanics, why don't foes in most video games team up and kill me? Why do they sort themselves weakest to hardest? Why do all the dungeons seem designed specifically for me defeating them? Video game are never consistent, they often don't even try to be. However D&D isn't limited the way video games are, there is no reason why it should limit itself in the same way.

You do realize, EE, that your specific examples work a lot more for our side? After the orcs died, did you roll Diplomacy checks for the two kingdoms to decide if war broke out? Or did you just decide that the war broke out because it was a fitting consequence to the actions? And you basically admitted that to make craftsmen make sense, it's best to put them on a system than the PCs--your solution is to 'create a new class' that has high skill ranks, but doesn't advance HP, BAB, etc., and implicitly didn't advance to its current level by killing monsters. That we shouldn't give the Librarian a whole bunch of combat prowess because it doesn't make sense is exactly our point.
1. I was talking about consistency in general, not about 4E in a particular but
2. Yes i did roll diplomacy (I don't use WOTC method by the by) because if these kingdoms broke into war that would make a massive difference on the world. A peaceful agreement was possible. I rolled a D-percent to see if any peaceful attempts were successfully made on my own time and when it failed, i simply prepared ahead for the effects the war would have on the game world. When the PCs passes by farms, they would notice that many of the hands are missing along with the food, that raiders were becoming more frequent, ect ect. Consistency is good, the game should support that
3. I never said 3E was perfect, nor that the Expert class was perfect. i've been saying that they should have fixed it within the system, not totally changed everything


Nor have you provided any information that says that the PCs and only the PCs are special people.
WFT are you talking about? P. 14 Races and Classes, entire world building section of worlds and monsters.


The quotes you provided describe nothing more than the status quo: adventuring classes are rare, a cut above your average Joe Peasant, and even individual members of the local militia. Only a handful of people have the stubborn soul, inner fire, sheer chutzpah, etc. needed to follow that potential. Which, among a population of billions, could still be over a thousand people, and still just a drop in the bucket. 4e may be implementing altered mechanics for creating NPCs for ease of use of the DM, but that is not remotely the same thing as your claim that 4e is an instant gratification fest where PCs are gods among men from 1st level, unchallenged by anything.
1. The quote in world and monsters specifically said PCs were better period, not adventures
2. The issue is NPCs and PCs following different rules, bad for consistency



Nowhere has anybody said that only PCs can be brought back from the dead. They have said that only high level characters can be brought back from the dead, that isn't the same thing
other than the quote on the matter? It was made clear that high level PCs will be brought back from the dead on a relatively regular basis, while NPCs resurrection will be a super special awesome occurrence



1) Resurrection in 4th edition will be much rarer in 4th edition than 3rd. It will be restricted, pretty much, to Epic Level PCs.
2) Since Epic Level PCs are the only PCs who get resurrection, it follows that only PCs get resurrection, and that therefore PCs are gods.
3) Since PCs are gods, the game should just start at Epic Level and have done with it.

Um, where did you get the idea that resurrection will be rarer for PCs, who are expected to come back from the dead long before epic tier. Also it was stated it is expected that the PCs will replace gods regularly



from
EE

fendrin
2008-03-13, 10:18 PM
Claiming somebody plays some way in a style like that is a strawman argument. Its putting untrue facts into my mouth. Bad form Wait, when did I claim you actually play that way? I said it was 'EE-style', based on a specific quote from one of your posts. That is extrapolation, not a straw man. Get the terminology right or don't use it, please.


1. Fun fact, claiming you are right doesn't make it so
2. In order to prove that, your going to need to demonstrate said incompetence
3. Consistency doesn't bring about incompetence, it brings about a logical world. Bad DMs bring about incompetence, that that is hardly the system's fault.

1) Nope. It also doesn't make me wrong.
2) I already did. It's what you erroneously labeled a straw man argument.
3) I would say that 'ridiculous levels of attention to consistency' is a sign of a bad DM. Thus what you said does not invalidate what I said.


1. Um, yeah i don't need a chart to figure out how the PCs actions will alter a world
2. I do however need the rules and the game design to support the possibility of consistency. Which from all indications, they only support a very video game like style (not WoW in particular, mind you) of the world only existing around the PCs.
1) Good.
2) They do. All you have to do is decide to use the PC rules for everyone. Boom, done. Not so hard.


Here it is, why don't the PCs die at 0? Special powers, uber magics, what is it? They aren't chosen ones, they are god spawn, they aren't special for any sort of reasons other than "Oh look, they are the heros". Why? Because the designers thought it would make a better game. I agree. Need an in-game reason to make your world consistent? Easy enough to come up with one. You just came up with four.


If the PCs are reduced to the negatives, they have options, it isn't game over. They can be healed, they can be stabilized, they can be helped. Same options should exist for other people as well. They are, if the DM wants them to be.


Should a foe get reduced to the negatives, it makes sense for them to be healed, to stand up, to not be out of the fight. If such options aren't available, then they die, no biggie, who cares.
Nothing is stopping you from doing that.


1. Um, that isn't the issue here. This is about consistency
2. But on the subject of the stabilization, i don't think they should simply escape simply because they did. They should escape if they are able to escape, if they can't get away, then the PCs are effective as keeping these things quite

1. You keep going back and forth between "consistency" and "consistency mandated by the rules". Pick one and stick with it.
2. Read a little closer. The party had moved on. As in, they weren't around to stop the mooks from limping away. The mooks stabilized because I decided it was beneficial to the game. I can do the same thing in 4e. Does it need to be in the rules? No.

ShadowSiege
2008-03-13, 11:31 PM
WFT are you talking about? P. 14 Races and Classes, entire world building section of worlds and monsters.

BZZZT! WRONG! Full text that EE is referring to:


4th Edition player characters are unabashedly the heroes of the tale. In a world of magical powers and terrifying threats, player characters are people who possess the potential for greatness. Even at the start of their careers, in the hardscrabble world of the beginning adventurer, player characters have abilities that set them apart from other mortals. They won't necessarily survive, but if they do, they're destined to tap into powers and abilities that are simply not available to the vast majority of the other beings populating the world of D&D

Bold mine. You have once again demonstrated your poor reading comprehension. No where does it say that the PCs are unique, in fact that last part implies that they aren't. There aren't many like them, but there are others.

Rutee
2008-03-13, 11:39 PM
You recognize that he will fail to acknowledge that he is in fact, demonstrably incorrect, and that you will just keep having to repeat this until you're exhausted, yes?

ShadowSiege
2008-03-14, 01:02 AM
You recognize that he will fail to acknowledge that he is in fact, demonstrably incorrect, and that you will just keep having to repeat this until you're exhausted, yes?

I'm well aware of it by now. But unlike Quixote charging at a windmill, this is less about throwing myself against the brick wall that is EE and more about demonstrating that he is wrong for the edification of others.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-14, 05:23 AM
I'm well aware of it by now. But unlike Quixote charging at a windmill, this is less about throwing myself against the brick wall that is EE and more about demonstrating that he is wrong for the edification of others.

I kinda thought that he was doing a good job of that himself...

(There's a really good scene in "Thank you for Smoking" where the marketing guy is explaining his job to his son, by getting him to argue the merits of chocolate ice cream over vanilla. It ends with the son saying "But you didn't convince me vanilla was better" at which point the father points to the people walking by outside and says "I don't need to convince you. I need to convince them."

fendrin
2008-03-14, 06:49 AM
BZZZT! WRONG! Full text that EE is referring to:


4th Edition player characters are unabashedly the heroes of the tale. In a world of magical powers and terrifying threats, player characters are people who possess the potential for greatness. Even at the start of their careers, in the hardscrabble world of the beginning adventurer, player characters have abilities that set them apart from other mortals. They won't necessarily survive, but if they do, they're destined to tap into powers and abilities that are simply not available to the vast majority of the other beings populating the world of D&D

Bold mine. You have once again demonstrated your poor reading comprehension. No where does it say that the PCs are unique, in fact that last part implies that they aren't. There aren't many like them, but there are others.

Well done. That quote also provides the in-game rationale that EE has been claiming doesn't exist: destiny/potential for greatness.

Ralfarius
2008-03-14, 03:35 PM
I'm well aware of it by now. But unlike Quixote charging at a windmill, this is less about throwing myself against the brick wall that is EE and more about demonstrating that he is wrong for the edification of others.
The scraps of skin from your forehead and the resulting "Please do not use wall, OUT OF ORDER" scrawled beneath in hateful permanent marker are highly appreciated. It might not help the wall, but at least everyone else knows its there. Now we just need a "Caution: Wall" sign about ten feet ahead of said wall.

EvilElitest
2008-03-16, 07:51 PM
1) Nope. It also doesn't make me wrong.
2) I already did. It's what you erroneously labeled a straw man argument.
3) I would say that 'ridiculous levels of attention to consistency' is a sign of a bad DM. Thus what you said does not invalidate what I said.

1. Prove that incompetence and consistency go together more than inconsistency then?
2. Except that was basically a lie. It proves nothing it is waht you claim what a game my style would be like, contrary to prior claims, and only discredits you in resorting to it. That situation is a case of a Bad DM, not a problem with consistency
3. Why? I'd say that inconsistency is a sign of a bad DM, because
A) you have a static unbelievable world
B) logic is thrown aside





1) Good.
2) They do. All you have to do is decide to use the PC rules for everyone. Boom, done. Not so hard.

1. That doesn't mean consistency is bad however
2. But why have those rules in the first place? That encourages inconsistency, illogical game worlds, and problems in game play. The rules as states should at least try to be logical and certainly consistent, and if people wish to alter them for their own games, then that is there business. However it shouldn't be the individuals DM's burdern to make the game logical


Why? Because the designers thought it would make a better game. I agree. Need an in-game reason to make your world consistent? Easy enough to come up with one. You just came up with four.

1. The designers also thought diplomacy was a good system. That didn't turn out well as you can imagine
2. it is the duty of the designers to make a consistent logical game. That includes in game reason. We need to work under the assumption that nobody here is going to homebrew, because otherwise what is the point of hte rules in the first place?

They are, if the DM wants them to be.


Nothing is stopping you from doing that.

Your working under this assumption that is a rule is bad, simply change it in the game. Under that asumption you don't need an edition change at all, every problem in 3E can be changed by homebrewing, and we don't need a new edition after all. It doesn't make the rule good


1. You keep going back and forth between "consistency" and "consistency mandated by the rules". Pick one and stick with it.
2. Read a little closer. The party had moved on. As in, they weren't around to stop the mooks from limping away. The mooks stabilized because I decided it was beneficial to the game. I can do the same thing in 4e. Does it need to be in the rules? No.

1. What are you talking about? I want consistency with rules to make a logical consistent world/game
2. If you did so, then that should be the DM altering the altering existing rules to make a story. however hte rules themselves should be consistent. If you wish to alter them for the sake of the story fine, but as written they should be consistent.


Bold mine. You have once again demonstrated your poor reading comprehension. No where does it say that the PCs are unique, in fact that last part implies that they aren't. There aren't many like them, but there are others.
Um, hate to break it to you, but wrong paragraph


One of 3rd Edition's advances was to model monsters using the same tools used to model player characters. 3rd Edition player characters and monsters calculate ability scores, hit points, saves, attack bonuses, and skill ranks using the same mechanical structure. 4th Edition recognizes the value of using the same tools for PCs and monsters, but opts to turn the tools to a new purpose.

The parameters and basic game mechanics for 4th Edition player characters are not identical to the rules and powers used by the world's monsters and nonplayer characters. The PCs are going to be on center stage for the life of the campaign and deserve all the power options and customization features that the system can bear. Monsters and most NPCs are lucky to appear more than once, particularly if they're encountered in combat situations.

So we've made 4th Edition simpler to run and play by simplifying monsters and NPCs. The new system is not overly concerned with simulating interactions between monsters and nonplayer characters when the PCs are not on stage. 4th Edition orients monster design (and, to some extent, NPC design) around what's fun for player characters to encounter as challenges. Intricate lists of abilities and multiple significant exceptions-based powers are reserved for the PCs rather than handed out to every monster.
also this goes along with
"adventures are Exceptional
The adventurers created by the players are the pioneers, explorers, trailblazers, thrill seekers, and heroes of the D&D world. Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders"
p. 13 world and monsters


You recognize that he will fail to acknowledge that he is in fact, demonstrably incorrect, and that you will just keep having to repeat this until you're exhausted, yes?
I recognize you have a massive double standard, and i can say the exact same thing about you. I think you are incorrect, and you certainly haven't proven me wrong, or provided much evidence at all know that i think about it. And so i will have to keep repeating this until i'm exhausted now won't I?



I'm well aware of it by now. But unlike Quixote charging at a windmill, this is less about throwing myself against the brick wall that is EE and more about demonstrating that he is wrong for the edification of others.
Well considering you used the wrong damn paragraph to "prove" your point this, like many of your points is void



Well done. That quote also provides the in-game rationale that EE has been claiming doesn't exist: destiny/potential for greatness.
Bloody hell people, did anyone read this damn thread here? That isn't the quote in question, i've provided plenty of other examples that you've done a good job of ignoring it
from
EE

fendrin
2008-03-16, 10:18 PM
Bloody hell people, did anyone read this damn thread here? That isn't the quote in question, i've provided plenty of other examples that you've done a good job of ignoring it

Well, that's the thing about debating... you don't get to choose what text counts and what doesn't. Just because you based your argument off of one quote doesn't mean others can't counterpoint with other text. All of the text is equally valid.

Now, as for the rest, it all comes down to you insisting that more consistency always makes the game better. I counter with the following: 4e is aiming for larger battles than 3e typically had. If you have 15 enemies down and needing stabilization rolls, that slows down the game, plus adds a lot of bookkeeping.

As for my point about ridiculous levels of consistency being a sign of a bad DM (or perhaps more accurately in this case, bad design), the other extreme is also bad.

I would say that consistency is desirable so long as it does not impinge upon the enjoyment of the gamers. Determining where exactly the 'sweet spot' of consistency is depends on a whole host of other variables and multi-variate calculus, which I haven't done in almost 10 years. That or a lucky approximation.

The designers seem to feel that the ideal level of consistency is less than what you want. You disagree. All I can say is that I trust their judgment more than yours, because they have verifiable game design experience which you do not have. So I choose to be hopeful for the best, armed with the knowledge that I can add significant levels of consistency if I choose to.

Do designers make mistakes? Of course they do. Until I have the actual final published rulebook in my hands, though, and have chance to actually play through the rules a while, I am not going to claim they have made a mistake. How could I know? Of course, the same goes for you. How can you know? You can't. All we have is a few scraps of information. It's like trying to determine whether or not a movie is any good by watching the trailers. It gives you a taste, but that's it. You have to actually see the movie before you can really tell if it's any good.

Yahzi
2008-03-16, 10:37 PM
This *does* in fact mean that you have to roll a Craft check for everybody in town, or at least assume they Take Ten.
If you assume they Take Ten, and then find out that everyone in town is a billionare, then ya... that's kind of a problem.


You're falling into the fallacy of the excluded middle here. You're saying that you must have a world in which either everybody can do what the PCs can do, or in which the PCs are the only people in the world who can do what they can do.
No, I'm not. Obviously people without legs can't walk, and the PCs can do that.

But the point is that if the PCs are selected by the laws of physics to be different, it makes them less human.


Look at it like surgeons in the real world. It's not like every single medical student is world famous for their amazing healing powers, but it's not like you expect to find a specialist neurosurgeon in every village inn.
Where do you get this stuff from? I never, even for an instant, suggested that every NPC was equal to every other NPC. I simply suggested that making the PCs follow different laws of physics than the NPCs was detrimental to role-playing.


Because it's a third level spell, and the odds of a local temple having a fifth level cleric in it is minimal?
How did you calculate these odds?

By the DMG's rules for generating communities, it's not minimal at all.

By the player's own experiences, where they run into level-appropriate challenges every other day, it's not minimal at all either.


Again, you're assuming that any given skill or ability must be either totally unique or utterly commonplace with no middle ground.
No, I am not.


That's right, you could get rid of the assumption that NPCs automatically follow PC rules.
I have to go with Indon on this: while that might work for you, it will never work for me. Once my group finds out they are unique, they proceed to take maximum advantage of that uniqueness, and the game is over.

Look at it this way: if you were the only person in the world who could cast Mage Hand, you would be richer than Bill Gates and more famous than the Pope.


Suddenly: ta daa! No, of course our village priest isn't a powerful wielder of magic, that would be stupid, we'd never need to know hunger or sickness again if that were the case. There's some people out there who we call "clerics" who can do that sort of thing, but they're rare and unusual. What, you mean you are one? Great, can you go and solve this murder for us...
What do you mean by rare and unusual? Surgeons are rare and unusual. That doesn't seem to be a problem.

On the other hand, if you mean rare in the sense that no one can procure their services even when their child is dying, then I'll say it again: when healing is that rare, your cleric is not Bob the cleric, he's Jesus.

I don't know about you, but when my players gain the status of Jesus at 5th level, it tends to wreck our game.



Uri Gellar isn't a psychic, he's a fraud.
No, he is a psychic. And a very good one. The definition of "psychic" is "one who performs standard magic tricks badly and yet still gets paid." And on the scale of getting paid a lot while sucking greatly, Uri is and always will be a super-star.

:smallbiggrin:

Sorry about the confusion, but I didn't have any other examples, because there aren't any psychics. Which was my point: Mage Hand makes you uber - as long as no else has it.


Because spells cost money. Lots of money. More money than most people make in a long time according to the DMG.
Um... that's another huge problem. Remove Disease is free to the caster, yet sells for some ungodly sum of cash. Why not reduce the price to something people can afford, and then clean up? Lord knows I do it every time I play a Cleric... for 10 minutes, until the DM figures out the answer.

The answer, of course, is that every town has a Cleric who casts Remove Disease for free on people who worship with that Cleric. It only costs that much for out-of-town mercenaries (i.e. adventurers). That's a fine answer - it just annoys me that the DM has to make it up on his own. That answer should be in the book, and the demographics of the world should reflect that Cure Disease is used like that.

fendrin
2008-03-17, 12:58 PM
Yahzi, I have 3 problems with your post. The first two relate to D&D and the other does not.

1) You say that you aren't saying that only PCs are able to do the things they are able to do, then you talk about getting rich because you are the only one who can do what you do. There is a contradiction there.

2) If you take your logic to the logical conclusion, in time there will be no need for adventurers at all.
As people get sick, they and those around them convert to whatever faith the cleric is. This will continue until all humans are protected from disease.
because they are not reproducing effectively, Human-born illnesses will die out, and new ones will not evolve.
Create Food and Water eliminates all starvation. Also, as a result, all knowledge of farming and animal husbandry are lost, as they are not needed skills.
There will be no cause for war, as all people's needs will be met. As such the last remaining call for adventurers will be exploring the wilderness.
Once the entire world has been explored, The world society will evolve into to castes: the clerics and the artists. All physical aggression will eventually be bred out of any species capable of having clerics.
Now, while there are plenty of adventures to be had sometime between when Cure Disease, Cure Light Wounds, and Create Food and Water become freely available and the setting of a game I would call "Parishes and Painters", I shouldn't be forced to play in a setting that is logically mandated by the rules. Therefore, your solution plainly doesn't work.

Personally, I smite any player that tries something like that in my games:
"Your god(dess) gave you those spells to help people, not take advantage of them. You have proven yourself unworthy of your deity's blessing. You lose all divine abilities." Of course, I don't allow NPC clerics to sell their spells either. Of course, I've been using the Eberron-style 'most priests are Experts' idea since a year or so after 3.0 came out, so it has less of an effect on my games.

3) As I already said, this has nothing to do with D&D, it is just a logical fallacy: You claim that there are no psychics, but cannot prove it. It is impossible to prove that something does not exist unless you can prove it cannot exist. Unless you have some supreme knowledge of the human brain that is far more advanced than the foremost experts (other than yourself of course) in neuroscience, then you cannot prove that psychics do not exist. Of course, by the time we know enough to prove that psychics do or cannot exist, it will be a moot point as we will have already developed the technological equivalent to psychics.

Zincorium
2008-03-17, 01:34 PM
3) As I already said, this has nothing to do with D&D, it is just a logical fallacy: You claim that there are no psychics, but cannot prove it. It is impossible to prove that something does not exist unless you can prove it cannot exist. Unless you have some supreme knowledge of the human brain that is far more advanced than the foremost experts (other than yourself of course) in neuroscience, then you cannot prove that psychics do not exist. Of course, by the time we know enough to prove that psychics do or cannot exist, it will be a moot point as we will have already developed the technological equivalent to psychics.

While you've got a sort-of point, the fact that you cannot definitively prove that psychics are not possible does not prove psychics exist, psychics are by no means a default assumption to how the world works. Until they can be demonstrated scientifically (and they have not, even after governments spent billions of dollars finding out) there is more than enough reason to say that there are no psychics out there.

It's not a provable position, but then most positions that are a denial of bizarre things are equally unprovable, I don't insist you believe in the mongolian death worm (a 'cryptid') until someone has a videotape that can be verified as undoctored.

All things that are contained in science must have an explanation for how they work and must be shown, at least by their effects, to be in existence. You can make predictions based on them. Predictions we could make based on the idea that psychics exist all turn out to be false.

No professed psychic has ever won the lottery. You would expect nearly 100% of lottery winners to be psychics if they existed, even though winning the lottery is bad for most people, because the temptation is there. There are lots of similar examples I can make if you need them.

The point is, the statement 'there are no psychics' is valid because the world behaves exactly as one would expect if psychics indeed did not exist.

Seriously, don't be EE. Nobody, probably even EE, wants that.

Mr. Friendly
2008-03-17, 02:53 PM
RE: Real World Psychics

While it can be debated as to whether or not there "really are psychics" and whatever, there is definately some sort of latent psychic ability, which has been demonstrated in various tests with twins, other siblings and parent-child testings.

During the Cold War, the Russians and Americans both conducted extensive research on the nature of psychic ability. One of the more telling results from a Soviet experiment was a mother cat, hooked up to an EKG back on land, while her newborn kittens were taken out to sea aboard on a submarine. The sub went several thousand miles away and then the kittens were drowned; at the same instant, the mother cat's EKG spiked through the roof.

Is this "proof" of actual psychic powers? No. It does however muddle the water so much that it cannot be definitively said "there is no such thing as psychics" or "psychics really do exist"

fendrin
2008-03-17, 08:01 PM
Oh dear I fear I've put my foot in it now...

It's very simple. In the philosophy of science, things definitely exist if they are proven to exist and definitely do not exist if it is proven that they cannot exist. Everything else may or may not exist.

It really is that simple.

Raum
2008-03-17, 09:08 PM
There will be no cause for war, as all people's needs will be met. As such the last remaining call for adventurers will be exploring the wilderness.More wars have been fought because someone wanted something than because someone needed something. Or, possibly more accurate, it's a perceived need rather than an actual need.

I'd even venture to say the boredom caused by having needs met might result in more war rather than less. But then I'm a cynic...reading history did that to me. :)

EvilElitest
2008-03-17, 09:48 PM
Well, that's the thing about debating... you don't get to choose what text counts and what doesn't. Just because you based your argument off of one quote doesn't mean others can't counterpoint with other text. All of the text is equally valid.

Sure, except
1. Shadowsiege claimed that the text in question was what i was referring too. Which is a lie because i've never used it
2. It also didn't prove any of the other text i produced or my point wrong


Now, as for the rest, it all comes down to you insisting that more consistency always makes the game better. I counter with the following: 4e is aiming for larger battles than 3e typically had. If you have 15 enemies down and needing stabilization rolls, that slows down the game, plus adds a lot of bookkeeping.

Then don't have stabilization rules at all. Have everyone die at 0. Or have no possible stabilization. What ever you choose, make sure it applies to everyone

here is an idea, how about have a list of feats that allow you to live past 0 hp. That way you could have easily dying mooks and actually threats along with maintains consistency.

Or have stabilization only work for people with X number of HD, making mooks able to die and PCs/super enemies being powerful

Or make it a racial or class skill.

What ever the reason, have consistency. Don't make the reason be "We are to lazy um, incompetent , busy to be buggered (by we i mean Wot) and the only logic is "Well they are the heroes"


As for my point about ridiculous levels of consistency being a sign of a bad DM (or perhaps more accurately in this case, bad design), the other extreme is also bad.
when it comes to rules, consistency can be nothing but good. If rules only apply to some people but not others, you don't really have rules at all.


I would say that consistency is desirable so long as it does not impinge upon the enjoyment of the gamers. Determining where exactly the 'sweet spot' of consistency is depends on a whole host of other variables and multi-variate calculus, which I haven't done in almost 10 years. That or a lucky approximation.
In terms of games rules consistency is extremly important. In terms of logical worlds consistency is extremly important. In terms of a logical game in both a mechanical and in a in game aspect, consistency is extremly important for a game like D&D. Unless they change the game to a storytelling based game, lack of consistency will be a problem for a game stylized like D&D (I mean that was the main problem in 3E)


The designers seem to feel that the ideal level of consistency is less than what you want. You disagree. All I can say is that I trust their judgment more than yours, because they have verifiable game design experience which you do not have. So I choose to be hopeful for the best, armed with the knowledge that I can add significant levels of consistency if I choose to.

Um, remember this guys gave use the diplomacy system and the CR, and teh balance system we all know and love.


And now we are talking about physics
from
EE

fendrin
2008-03-17, 09:52 PM
More wars have been fought because someone wanted something than because someone needed something. Or, possibly more accurate, it's a perceived need rather than an actual need.

I'd even venture to say the boredom caused by having needs met might result in more war rather than less. But then I'm a cynic...reading history did that to me. :)

Can you give any examples? Keeping in mind that the desire for wealth is am extension of the desire for food: wealth guarantees food for yourself and your descendants. Create Food and Water eliminates that.

Even the value of art becomes irrelevant because the artist isn't under any pressure to sell to the highest bidder, as they will never be a 'starving artist'.

Even religious wars typically are actually about food. For instance, the crusades were caused by overpopulation in Europe.

Serenity
2008-03-17, 10:24 PM
Actually, EE, it basically does disprove your point. Because if PCs have access to abilities that the vast majority of NPCs in the world don't, that means that a minority of NPCs in the world do have access to those abilities. and since a world is very, very large, that means there can still be lots and lots of NPCs that have those abilities: certain monsters, big bads and their lieutenants, archmages who isolate themselves from the world to pursue dangerous arcane studies, all these and more can have abilities like the PCs, and the total will be a drop in the bucket compared to the number of Commoners, Warriors, Experts, and Aristocrats who are just living their lives outside of the epic destiny/favor of the gods/sheer stubborn grit that touches the PCs and those like them.

fendrin
2008-03-17, 10:32 PM
Certainly seemed to me that ShadowSeige proved you wrong.

As for the rest, it is all opinion.
If you can't handle that, that is not my problem, or a problem with 4e.
It is your problem.

You feel it would be better to have the players die at 0 than to have the PCs be 'different'. I disagree, and so do the designers.

You think there you can do better? Write it up and post it in the homebrew section.

Jayabalard
2008-03-17, 10:33 PM
4. There will be no cause for war, as all people's needs will be met. As such the last remaining call for adventurers will be exploring the wilderness.This is just a false assumption; protection from disease and plenty of nourishing food does not quality as "all needs be[ing] met" and I can think of plenty of reasons that people would go to war even in such a world.


It is impossible to prove that something does not exist unless you can prove it cannot exist.You can do this with some inductive proofs, but only in certain circumstances.

as for whether there are any psychics...
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_data_so_far.png

EvilElitest
2008-03-17, 10:37 PM
Actually, EE, it basically does disprove your point. Because if PCs have access to abilities that the vast majority of NPCs in the world don't, that means that a minority of NPCs in the world do have access to those abilities. and since a world is very, very large, that means there can still be lots and lots of NPCs that have those abilities: certain monsters, big bads and their lieutenants, archmages who isolate themselves from the world to pursue dangerous arcane studies, all these and more can have abilities like the PCs, and the total will be a drop in the bucket compared to the number of Commoners, Warriors, Experts, and Aristocrats who are just living their lives outside of the epic destiny/favor of the gods/sheer stubborn grit that touches the PCs and those like them.

Um, my quote from worlds and monsters? anyone

"adventures are Exceptional
The adventurers created by the players are the pioneers, explorers, trailblazers, thrill seekers, and heroes of the D&D world. Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders"

my other quote from races and classes
from
EE

Serenity
2008-03-17, 10:53 PM
Um, my quote from worlds and monsters? anyone

"adventures are Exceptional
The adventurers created by the players are the pioneers, explorers, trailblazers, thrill seekers, and heroes of the D&D world. Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders"

my other quote from races and classes
from
EE

See those things I put in bold? Those are called 'qualifiers' and these ones indicate that the concept they are qualifying is not always the case. And it might also be that one excerpt from a book doesn't tell the whole story. Like, I could post an excerpt from Wizard and Glass that makes the Dark Tower series seem like romance novels, because it just contains a part where Roland and Susan are flirting, not the gunslinging that comes before and after. Or the part where Susan gets burned at the stake, that's a pretty important point that you'd miss in an excerpt.

fendrin
2008-03-17, 10:54 PM
This is just a false assumption; protection from disease and plenty of nourishing food does not quality as "all needs be[ing] met" and I can think of plenty of reasons that people would go to war even in such a world. Such as?


You can do this with some inductive proofs, but only in certain circumstances.Proof is proof, inductive or deductive.


as for whether there are any psychics...
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_data_so_far.png
Which still does not prove they do not exist.


"adventures are Exceptional
The adventurers created by the players are the pioneers, explorers, trailblazers, thrill seekers, and heroes of the D&D world. Although some of the non player characters might have a class and gain power, they do not necessarily advance as the PCs do and they exist for a different purpose. Not everyone in the world gains levels like PCs. An NPC might be a veteran of many battles and still not become a 3rd Level fighter an army of elves is largely made up of nonclassed solders"

Nothing in there says that PCs are unique.
Exceptional? Yes. Unusual? Yes. Unique? No.


See those things I put in italics?
Unfortunately the entire quote gets italicized, so your italics got lost. Most people use bold.

Dervag
2008-03-17, 11:07 PM
Sure, except
1. Shadowsiege claimed that the text in question was what i was referring too. Which is a lie because i've never used it
2. It also didn't prove any of the other text i produced or my point wrong

Then don't have stabilization rules at all. Have everyone die at 0. Or have no possible stabilization. What ever you choose, make sure it applies to everyone

here is an idea, how about have a list of feats that allow you to live past 0 hp. That way you could have easily dying mooks and actually threats along with maintains consistency.

Or have stabilization only work for people with X number of HD, making mooks able to die and PCs/super enemies being powerful

Or make it a racial or class skill.

What ever the reason, have consistency. Don't make the reason be "We are to lazy um, incompetent , busy to be buggered (by we i mean Wot) and the only logic is "Well they are the heroes"Why do you believe that there is any risk of someone not using rules consistently? As far as I can tell, you're totally convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the authors of 4th Edition are going to pack in all these game mechanics that only apply to the PCs and not to anyone else in the universe. Why are you so convinced that you keep sticking up for this when so many other people aren't convinced?

Also, I would point out that there are game systems where that kind of "inconsistency" works fine. In those systems, some people are Powerful, others are not, Powerful people have qualities that not everyone has. Some people are the flashy adventure heroes, others are part of the Minions of Dread or Foot Soldiers of Light or whatever.

And yet the people playing those games have fun. So in Heaven's name why not have a game like that? If no one is making you do it, why get so wigged out over the 'threat' that it will happen in someone else's game?


In terms of games rules consistency is extremly important. In terms of logical worlds consistency is extremly important. In terms of a logical game in both a mechanical and in a in game aspect, consistency is extremly important for a game like D&D. Unless they change the game to a storytelling based game, lack of consistency will be a problem for a game stylized like D&D (I mean that was the main problem in 3E)Frankly, the rules of any game system are not and never will be good enough to construct a perfectly consistent world. Unless, of course the game system is so boring no one would want to play it, in which case it will die under its own weight.

Sooner or later you're going to have to rule that the universe can't be explained simply by extending the existing rules to cover all of space- that things there are no rules for may be necessary and important.


*WARNING! TANGENT*
Congratulations! You fail! Uri Gellar isn't a psychic, he's a fraud. All he does is make Bluff (misdirection), Sense Motive (cold reading) and Sleight of Hand checks, if we're going with the D&D theme. The wizard on the other hand is using actual magic.You, sirrah, fail squared. Uri Gellar is a talented skillmonkey because nobody can do telekinesis. If there were one person who could do telekinesis... then that guy would be a lot like Uri Gellar, only he could make a fool out of James Randi with trivial ease. Which the real Uri Gellar cannot.


Because spells cost money. Lots of money. More money than most people make in a long time according to the DMG. It seems that any caster in any D&D world is out-and-out a money grubbing bastard with a heart made of cold iron, unless they're the PCs. It's a multiverse-wide conspiracy to keep the masses downtrodden, really.Help! I'm being oppressed!

[gets whumped by an NPC cleric]Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system...


Bah, just dominate the figurehead leaders. That way the plebes think they have independence, but are really subservient to the magocracy. If the plebes revolt, just dominate the new leaders. That's why smart mages are always the power behind the throne.And not the obvious evil vizier behind the throne either. The nice power behind the throne, the one that gets credit for the civic beautification drives and destroying the monsters in the Slough of Zombies and suchlike.


2) If you take your logic to the logical conclusion, in time there will be no need for adventurers at all.
As people get sick, they and those around them convert to whatever faith the cleric is. This will continue until all humans are protected from disease.
because they are not reproducing effectively, Human-born illnesses will die out, and new ones will not evolve.
Create Food and Water eliminates all starvation. Also, as a result, all knowledge of farming and animal husbandry are lost, as they are not needed skills.
There will be no cause for war, as all people's needs will be met. As such the last remaining call for adventurers will be exploring the wilderness.
Once the entire world has been explored, The world society will evolve into to castes: the clerics and the artists. All physical aggression will eventually be bred out of any species capable of having clerics.
Now, while there are plenty of adventures to be had sometime between when Cure Disease, Cure Light Wounds, and Create Food and Water become freely available and the setting of a game I would call "Parishes and Painters", I shouldn't be forced to play in a setting that is logically mandated by the rules. Therefore, your solution plainly doesn't work.You could always rule that the world is not in a steady state. Maybe this civilization is built on the ruins of previous "Parishes and Painters" cultures that were destroyed by some kind of malicious attack (like a scheming cabal of wizards or a plague of demons). Maybe clerics weren't so powerful 100 years ago, or were at any rate a lot rarer, so that they didn't have such a pervasive influence. In which case there would still be areas that aren't covered by "Parishes and Painters" societies.


Personally, I smite any player that tries something like that in my games:
"Your god(dess) gave you those spells to help people, not take advantage of them. You have proven yourself unworthy of your deity's blessing. You lose all divine abilities." Of course, I don't allow NPC clerics to sell their spells either. Of course, I've been using the Eberron-style 'most priests are Experts' idea since a year or so after 3.0 came out, so it has less of an effect on my games.Wouldn't the problem in (2) come up if clerics charge money or not?


3) As I already said, this has nothing to do with D&D, it is just a logical fallacy: You claim that there are no psychics, but cannot prove it. It is impossible to prove that something does not exist unless you can prove it cannot exist.Actually, he is not committing a logical fallacy, because he has a (rather strong) inductive argument backing him up.

Namely:
There are all sorts of ways in which a bona fide psychic could gain great power, wealth, fame, or some combination of the three that would 'reveal' the existence of psychics to the world. If psychics were real, then it beggars the imagination that they would stay in hiding so carefully.

Thus, the claim "there are no psychics" is well justified- the people who say they are psychics have been demonstrated to be either frauds (conclusive) or indistinguishable from frauds (not conclusive, but so suspicious as to approach conclusive).

If the people who say they are psychics are indistinguishable from frauds, and keeping in mind that the idea of psychic powers violates a lot of things we do know or have extremely compelling reasons to believe about the universe, then it seems fair to conclude that there are no psychics.

This is, of course, an inductive argument. You can reject it if you feel the probabilities don't favor it. But that doesn't make it a fallacy. As a piece of deductive logic it would be fallacious, but that's because deductive logic is extremely formalist. The form matters almost as much as the content, if not more so, which is exactly why deductive logic isn't as helpful as logicians wish it were. Because the real world has a great deal more content in it than it has formalism in it.

There are many inductive processes that can technically be considered a logical fallacy. Some of them pan out over and over when we actually test them. So it seems a bit harsh to throw around charges of "fallacy" as if they are all-decisive. If this be fallacy, then let us make the most of it.


Of course, by the time we know enough to prove that psychics do or cannot exist, it will be a moot point as we will have already developed the technological equivalent to psychics.Can you prove this, as you expect your debating partner to prove "there are no psychics?" And if not, why is it not unfair for you to hold him to a standard of proof you do not hold yourself to?


All things that are contained in science must have an explanation for how they work and must be shown, at least by their effects, to be in existence.Well... actually, I'd say that showing them to exist is enough. After all, most really exciting scientific discoveries start with a scientist finding something that they don't understand, and then figuring out an explanation for how they work through very careful reasoning and equally careful testing.

Raum
2008-03-17, 11:17 PM
Can you give any examples? Keeping in mind that the desire for wealth is am extension of the desire for food: wealth guarantees food for yourself and your descendants. Create Food and Water eliminates that.

Even the value of art becomes irrelevant because the artist isn't under any pressure to sell to the highest bidder, as they will never be a 'starving artist'.

Even religious wars typically are actually about food. For instance, the crusades were caused by overpopulation in Europe.Since it's a tangent, I responded here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75282).

Raum
2008-03-17, 11:30 PM
On the subject of scientifically proving existence (or lack thereof) of psychic powers, scientists will apply Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor). "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." Can alleged psychic phenomena be attributed to a simpler cause? If so, it will be.

Dode
2008-03-17, 11:44 PM
What are you guys even arguing about?

fendrin
2008-03-18, 09:39 AM
On Occam's razor and inductive logic:

These (very valuable) tools deal with probabilities, not absolutes.
Both can be applied correctly and yet produce incorrect answers.

Thus they cannot prove or disprove anything. They just say whether it is probable or improbable.



Of course, by the time we know enough to prove that psychics do or cannot exist, it will be a moot point as we will have already developed the technological equivalent to psychics.
Can you prove this, as you expect your debating partner to prove "there are no psychics?" And if not, why is it not unfair for you to hold him to a standard of proof you do not hold yourself to?
I was trying to inject a little humor in, but that obviously failed...
Well, the fact is, though we barely understand the brain, We do know that it can adapt to utilize technological augmentations. A few examples:
A camera connected to the brain allows a blind man to see (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/1281076.html) - this was commercially available!
A man controls a computer using a brain interface (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/brain.html)

So is it really that far fetched to have a web-capable cell phone directly connected to the brain? Certainly it's not yet possible, but how much longer? In time people will be able to communicate without moving a muscle... isn't that essentially what a psychic supposedly can do? Sure it's far off, but considering how far we are from understanding the brain to the point of being able to disprove (deductively) the existence of psychics, I'd bet on the brain-phone happening first.

It's not proof, but as I said, I was trying to be humorous, not factual.

Dervag
2008-03-18, 01:40 PM
On Occam's razor and inductive logic:

These (very valuable) tools deal with probabilities, not absolutes.
Both can be applied correctly and yet produce incorrect answers.

Thus they cannot prove or disprove anything. They just say whether it is probable or improbable.And yet, inductive logic can be most compelling, to the point where one would be a fool to simply ignore it.

Very little work in science, or any other human activity, would be possible if you sat down and said that nothing was decided until we had absolute 100.0000000000% certainty on the subject. The world doesn't work that way. So when someone comes up with a very good inductive argument, it's inappropriate to just turn around and say "oh well, you're not using a deductive argument so you could be wrong so I'm going to ignore you." Because you don't do that in life. You don't even do it in debate. Even if you use deductive arguments exclusively, there will always be induction hidden in your premises.


I was trying to inject a little humor in, but that obviously failed...I am sincerely sorry. Using Internet humor on me is risky, because I can't always tell if people are joking.


So is it really that far fetched to have a web-capable cell phone directly connected to the brain? Certainly it's not yet possible, but how much longer? In time people will be able to communicate without moving a muscle... isn't that essentially what a psychic supposedly can do?In a sense, yes, but since we can trace electrical, chemical, and mechanical interactions all the way from sender to receiver it isn't what I thought you were talking about.

I misunderstood what you meant by "technological equivalent of psychics."


Sure it's far off, but considering how far we are from understanding the brain to the point of being able to disprove (deductively) the existence of psychics, I'd bet on the brain-phone happening first.I dunno. I mean, we may not know much about the brain but we know it's made out of matter. And you can make a good argument that nothing made out of matter can possibly do what psychics claim to be able to do, simply because there are no forces in nature that work that way and if there were it would show up in other places.

fendrin
2008-03-18, 06:37 PM
Argh. I lost another good post. Oh well, I'll just have to re-write it... grumble grumble...


And yet, inductive logic can be most compelling, to the point where one would be a fool to simply ignore it.Nor am I. In fact, I labeled it as 'very valuable' in the text you quoted. However, it is not always accurate. In particular, it is very bad at being able to say something doesn't or cannot exist. For instance, several hundred years ago, human flight would inductively be declared to be impossible, as all experiments on it failed. How is that different from saying that psychic abilities are impossible because all experiments on them fail?


I dunno. I mean, we may not know much about the brain but we know it's made out of matter. And you can make a good argument that nothing made out of matter can possibly do what psychics claim to be able to do, simply because there are no forces in nature that work that way and if there were it would show up in other places.Quantum physics shows us that particles can exist in a state of 'quantum entanglement' in which particles that interact can 'bond' together in such a way that causing a change to one effects the same to the other despite the fact that they are no longer directly interacting. This is the principle that Einstein described as 'spooky action at a distance'. It is also the basis of quantum computing (http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/publications/papers/98.06.sciam/0698gershenfeld.html).

Zincorium
2008-03-18, 06:45 PM
Quantum physics shows us that particles can exist in a state of 'quantum entanglement' in which particles that interact can 'bond' together in such a way that causing a change to one effects the same to the other despite the fact that they are no longer directly interacting. This is the principle that Einstein described as 'spooky action at a distance'. It is also the basis of quantum computing (http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/publications/papers/98.06.sciam/0698gershenfeld.html).

Quantum entanglement /= psychics.

From what I am led to believe, quantum entanglement exists due to two particles on a quantum, below atomic level, colliding, interacting, and becoming entangled.

While this could explain a telekinetic, for instance, moving a spoon and making it bend (outside of the technique Uri Geller has admitted to using), how this could have occurred and the mechanism involved does not yet have any scientific basis. Without that scientific basis, any relationship is purely speculation.

The brain operates by electrochemical signals moving between nodes based on pathways devoloped during life. They don't interact on the quantum level any more than a wet-cell battery does according to anything we've yet studied.

fendrin
2008-03-18, 07:24 PM
Quantum entanglement /= psychics.
I didn't say it was. I was merely providing a counterpoint to Dervag's claim that '...you can make a good argument that nothing made out of matter can possibly do what psychics claim to be able to do, simply because there are no forces in nature that work that way and if there were it would show up in other places.'


From what I am led to believe, quantum entanglement exists due to two particles on a quantum, below atomic level, colliding, interacting, and becoming entangled.
That's pretty much it. The thing is, when the particles then separate, they are still in a state of quantum entanglement. Furthermore, it has also been found that if particle A becomes entangled with particle B, and then particle B becomes entangled with particle C, changes to particle A are reflected not only in B, but also in C.


While this could explain a telekinetic I was more thinking of telepathy, which I think of as the quintessential psychic ability.


Without that scientific basis, any relationship is purely speculation.Absolutely. Again, I wasn't trying to claim that psychic abilities exist and function off of quantum mechanics. Just that quantum mechanics can be used in ways that look a lot like what psychics claim to do.


The brain operates by electrochemical signals moving between nodes based on pathways devoloped during life. They don't interact on the quantum level any more than a wet-cell battery does according to anything we've yet studied.Key word: yet. We really don't know that much about neurobiology. Yet.

an kobold
2008-03-18, 07:38 PM
And thus it was proved that in Dnd, games, not worlds, are always about the PCs through a discussion of psychic phenomenon.

Mike_G
2008-03-18, 08:01 PM
And thus it was proved that in Dnd, games, not worlds, are always about the PCs through a discussion of psychic phenomenon.

Gentlemen!

I give you:

The Internet!

Dode
2008-03-18, 08:04 PM
I don't know how but this thread outdid the Paladin one.