Thought Experiment - Three Tiers

[Zinegata]

Blasted->

I think that's the BECMI ScottS mentioned.

Ice9->

Honestly? Aside from the timescale (and general power level) I haven't really thought about the nitty-gritty details on how Mythic plays differently from the first two tiers (it hadn't gone beyond Mythic = MtG). Thought experiment hadn't gone that far .

That being said, there's a lot of ways to do this, such as...

a) The demi-God acts as a puppet master over his followers.
b) The demi-God actually walks the Earth and personally kicks ass.
c) The demi-God lends his divine essence to mortal beings, who then acts as his proxy on Earth.

Or a combination of all 3.

Now as to why they don't simply "take a few hours off and go on a teleport-spree through your rival's towers, blasting the crap out their minions and libraries" - I would say that the presence of existing Gods would be a deterrent to such behavior.

Think of it like the Cold War. The Gods are armed with nuclear weapons. And they can totally destroy the world if they want to. But they *don't* want to do that. Because if they kill everyone nobody would worship them, and they'd lose their divinity and powers.

So when a demi-God decides to walk the Earth and blast fireballs at a rival God's temple, all the Gods notice. And they get pissed off. Because they don't want one of the Gods being pushed too far and deciding "Screw the world! Fire the nukes!".

CCarter->

Well, a central idea behind this thought experiment is that the nature of the game totally changes in different tiers. Hitting things hard eventually becomes a less viable solution, especially when the game starts focusing on negotiations and stuff.

So a fighter really has to get Lord skills, or retire. In the former case, he can still hit stuff really hard if he needs to (and he's got better gear to hit with), but it's become a secondary ability. Likewise, all of the "Burn enemy alive spells" the Mage had been learning? They become less important in Tier 2.

But you're right about the "Fits in Tier 1 and 3, but not in 2 thing". I've been mulling about it since Orca's post. So here's another proposal:

Branching Tiers.

When you hit level 8, the party has two options:

a) They can go into the Royals Tier, which lets them play the Game of Thrones.

b) They can go into the Super Heroic Tier, wherein the party becomes akin to a team of Super Heroes.

And parties who take either route can both progress to the Mythic Tier, which is in any case a blend of the two styles. So somebody like Gilgamesh is probably a Royal Tier dude who goes into Mythic Tier, while Hercules was part of the Super Heroic Tier along with the Argonauts before hitting Mythic.

In fact, maybe it's best to rename the tiers to the following:

* Tier 1: Adventurer's Tier. Focused on tactical combat.
* Tier 2 (a) : Heroic Tier. Similar to Adventurer's Tier, but with Super Heroes.
* Tier 2 (b) : Royal Tier. When Adventurers move up the food chain and lead kingdoms and armies.
* Tier 3: Mythic Tier. When you become awesome enough to be immortal and start challenging the Gods themselves.

Now, branching tiers make the game even more complicated. But I think this may be a neat concept that hasn't been fully explored before.

[mean_liar]

I brought up those other games (Reign specifically has the best attempt at this IMO) because I haven't really seen a compelling realm-management minigame that managed to maintain the same flavor as the rest of the game.

Has anyone?

[Sashi]

Well, the model I propose assumes you want to change how the game plays between different tiers. That's why massed combat becomes highlighted in the 2nd tier (as opposed to the 1st tier, where it's about individual combat).

There's no reason to force this tonal shift in exactly one place. You're basically proposing we run a chess tournament where people play scrabble for the semifinals. It's way better to run them parallel and give people the option of participating in one or both.

So my idea is you release one set of books for "heroes" i.e. your standard delta force strike team of 5 adventurers who storm into things and solve problems. And then another book set about castles, economy management, and mass combat (that allows you to hook in hero units from the main book) for all tiers past the first. There is literally no reason to make it so that people can play kings in castles hooked into the turnip economy and commanding knights, footmen, and siege tech but not gods in realms hooked into the wish economy and commanding angels, wizards, and living constructs. And there's even less reason to literally force them to switch from playing individual heroes into castle managers then back into individual heroes, or force them to timeskip and try to figure out what those 5 levels of castle manager give them as a living virtue.

Also, my intent isn't to simply convert abilities from previous tiers into background material for higher tiers. You still keep those abilities. So a Royal Tier character can, if they want, still go into a Bugbear's lair.

To be clear, when I said "background" I meant it in a more expansive way than "he used to be a Fighter". The idea would be that when you hit Royal tier and made a Paladin the following would happen:

1) You're automatically given the appropriate HP/Attack/Defense/etc for being a 6th level character
2) You get a suite of default Paladin class abilities/powers
3) You get to choose from a number of optional feats/talents/exploits whatever, some of which are Paladin specific, but also just generic martial/divine/whatever.
4) Choose a background class, and choose from a set of that class's basic abilities distilled down into their iconic form. So a Paladin could have a Ranger background for some nifty TWF boosts, or a Cleric background for a spot of spellcasting and the ability to use Divine wands and scrolls. You could even do interesting things like use Rogue and have a paladin with some sneak attack.

The idea being that if you organically played through the game for 5 levels of Fighter, then 5 levels of Paladin, and then graduated tiers and had a first level living virtue with Fighter and Paladin backgrounds, you'd basically have the same character as if you actually still had those 10 pre-living virtue levels, but if your Living Virtue died and you wanted to bring in a Forsworn Godslayer, you wouldn't have to decide what his first 10 levels actually were, you'd just choose that he had the Berserker and Master Huntsman backgrounds.

This would (hopefully) accomplish a number of things:
1) Cut down on the amount of work needed to make high level characters. So that saying "We start at 10th level" doesn't mean "better look through the books and make a million decisions all at once".
2) Remove the builds that are excruciatingly bad and difficult to play for 7 levels until they get some ability at 8th level that allows them to blossom into an overpowered build that's better than the rest of the party.
3) Encourage people to play the actual power level they want.

They'll probably have better equipment, and they may have red shirts who can activate traps for them. But level 7 is really meant to be a sort of a "cap" as to what a character can do from a "single combat" perspective.

That way lies madness. When the Hobo Rogue retires and makes a Minister, where did the Minister come from? His class literally couldn't exist for the first 5 levels of the game. Moreover, when they hit Godslayer tier aren't they going to go back to single combat?

[Lokathor]

For those more interested in BECMI, there's a retro clone out for it http://darkdungeonsblog.wordpress.com/downloads/

It being OGL, you could naturally gank it for ideas related to 3-tier gameplay.

[Zinegata]

I brought up those other games (Reign specifically has the best attempt at this IMO) because I haven't really seen a compelling realm-management minigame that managed to maintain the same flavor as the rest of the game.

Has anyone?

I dunno. Federation vs Empire (the strategy-level expansion to Federation Commander)?

Note though, that in the Thought Experiment I proposed, each tier maintaining the same flavor as the rest of the game is actually just a secondary objective. The main objective is to make each tier play in a radically different manner.

Realistically, a game that wants to maintain the same flavor among different tiers will not involve radical genre shifts.

Think of it this way, using computer RPGs as an example.

A game with same-flavor tiering would probably be Diablo 2. As you go up in difficulty level, your power level goes up like crazy. But you're still essentially playing a hack-and-slash game.

Compare that to the classic Micropose game Sword of the Samurai.

At low levels, you actually control an individual samurai. You fight one on one battles using a primitive fighting game/beat'm up system.

At mid levels, you start fighting large numbers of enemies (all on your own), via a top-down scroller game.

At high levels, you're an army commander playing an RTS.

Thus, the gameplay changes depending on the tier.

For the Thought Experiment, I'm proposing a tier system that fits closer to Sword of the Samurai.

Lokathor->

Cool!

Sashi->

Will reply in a bit. Your post requires a lot of thought and consideration.

[baduin]

The problem with RPG games is that they are several things at the same time, and they must be adequate as all of those things:
- they are a wargame
- a way to imagine yourself a hero in a magical pseudomedieval setting
- a way to vicariously gain power.

The problem is that in Computer RPG you can gain power without limit; you get upgrades, you fight stronger enemies with different animations, etc. This model is well tested and it works very well. But a tabletop RPG cannot change animations - it is mechanically a wargame, not a computer game. As soon as the basic orcs do not make sense any longer as opponents and you must fight +1 Orcs, +2 Orcs etc, any further power gain makes no sense from the wargame point of view. One is on a levelling treadmill - one runs forward just to stay in the same place.

But RPG is not only a wargame. One of the most important features of an RPG is giving a sense of power, and most importantly - of gaining power. Players want to become stronger and stronger, whether that makes sense or not.

The levelling treadmill DOES makes some sense from the powering up point of view - one is becoming stronger and stronger. After a while, however, there is a problem:
- in D&D 3e, the wargame breaks
- in D&D 4e, the wargame stays the same, and it becomes pretty obvious that the whole power up is a fiction. You fight different colored orcs with powers with different names, but it is pretty obvious that the orcs are the same and the powers are the same. Without the animations and explosions there is no feel of advancement.

The solution proposed here is to make several wargames. After gaining maximum power in wargame one (Tier1), one begins playing in wargame two (Tier2) at minimum power. The rules of Tier2 are written so as to provide more possible power.

Sashi noticed the most important problem with this system. What if someone likes wargame one, dislikes wargame two, but still wants to advance in power? Do we tell him to get lost, or to shut up and like it?

There are several possibilities:
- slow down advancement, giving more breadth of abilities instead of raw power. That way, one can stay longer in the same tier, feeling that he gains something, but not becoming overpowered.
- keep the second tier similar enough to first tier so that players who like Tier1 could play in Tier2. In particular, have some Easy Mode Classes (as discussed in another thread), who play similarly to Tier1.

For example, if in Tier2 the basic combat unit is 20 footsoldiers with PC commander, you could have some classes which are equivalent on their own to such a unit:
- a character who changes into a giant bear Beorn-style,
- a character riding on a dinosaur,
- a character on a flying mount.
- a flying wizard blasting with evocations.

Such characters can participate in the same wargame without having to take care about their henchmen, recruiting them, feeding them, keeping up their morale etc.

As for the Realm-level - see the descriptions of Dragon Pass game, esp. heroes and superheroes.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1720/dragon-pass