What needs to be removed to make high level dungeons work?

[Wrathzog]

See, from my standpoint, those are essentially the same thing. Just because we, as players, rejected your evil necromancer threatening the town adventure doesn't mean we don't want to play D&D. It just means we don't want to do that particular adventure. Hell, we probably didn't even know that was the only one you had planned.

If we leap ahead and kill the necromancer early, we probably just figured that was what we should do. We really aren't thinking that we're skipping any carefully-crafted, story-important encounters just because we arranged a trap and caught the guy in the loo.

Okay. So, I'm going to break these down and you tell me if I got them right.
Scenario 1: I decide, as a player, to not pursue my DM's plot hook.
Scenario 2: I decide to pursue my DM's plot hook and then I complete the adventure early because I did something the DM did not expect.
Please tell me what I'm missing because apparently I'm missing something.

My point is that free will trumps pre-written modules. Period. The characters first say "non serviam", and then the players if that doesn't work. The module breaks sooner or later, even if by "breaking" the players just don't play ball.

Alright then. So, now what? You posit that "free will trumps pre-written modules."
What do we do with that information?

[Lago PARANOIA]

So you're basically proposing that there are no side encounters other than the goal battle? Literally, the entire bad guy's castle is empty except for the throne room containing him and his person guard? That's like taking any novel involving a journey and slicing out all but the first and final chapter.

The kind of scenario you're proposing that the quality of an adventure is somehow dependent on length has a word for it: it's called FILLER. Only hacks include irrelevant shit like having a non-plot advancing encounter just because they feel a 'real' adventure needs to last for several hours. And yes, this pertains to stupid shit such as 'random guards in the hall' or 'dragon guarding the throne room'. People have hundreds of hours logged of playing video games or playing TTRPGs, a combat that only exist for the sake of combat is boring and repetitive. We've seen that shit a million times.

If you really want players not to just teleport in and gank the king, them stop clogging your adventure up with mindless padding. Have a guarded harem that the paladin's sister is enslaved in. Have a trapped library that has a book that the wizard wants in it. Something that advances the plot or character goals. If you can also make it pertain to combat, that's great, but otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time with puerile nonsense. I mean it's bad enough that you're railroading, but it's completely unacceptable that you're railroading the characters with filler.

[echoVanguard]

why should anyone with more power than the king listen to them? Why are the king's personal wizards listening to him at all if he's a vanilla 4th-level aristocrat? The only reason why they would is either out of personal loyalty (which is ridiculously unstable, especially with the extreme social darwinism of these times) or out of respect of the social contract (which hasn't been invented yet and probably will never be).

This is akin to asking why special forces commandoes don't just kill all the politicians and take power. They do, and it's called a coup, but there are compelling reasons not to perform one.

First off, economics. The king has economic clout - even if he doesn't personally have an immense fortune, he holds the reins of his kingdom's economic means of production. That's a lot of power to throw around, and if you're a high-level spellcaster, you still care about money to fund your personal ambitions - and you know that other high-level spellcasters could be bribed to kill you using that same money.

Second, political agendas and alliances. If the current king has agreements with neighboring nations, they'll understandably defend his government, because a replacement government might not honor those agreements.

Also, don't bother responding with nonsense about infinite money from selling walls of iron, because:
A) We're discussing principles and philosophy, not exploits of game mechanics, and
B) Economically speaking, there is no such thing as a limitless resource. Eventually, the markets will be flooded with iron and its value will drop accordingly, to the point that it's no longer worth the actions per day to cast Wall of Iron instead of some other, more profitable spell. Meanwhile, you're still competing with all the other wizards out there who have just as much gold as you if not more. Since you have a limited number of players competing for a limited amount of resources, the prices of everything will equalize until you're back where you started.

echo

[Lago PARANOIA]

Alright then. So, now what? You posit that "free will trumps pre-written modules."
What do we do with that information?

Design adventures that people actually want to go on. If you don't want people to skip the Castle of Doom, you need to make the Castle of Doom interesting. And no, hallways filled with zombie ogres or trap-filled throne rooms are not interesting; we've seen that shit a thousand times.

If you're having trouble designing adventures that people want to go on, the easiest way is to poll for input. Some people do this by providing sandboxes, others explicitly ask people what they want to play. You can also get an idea of what people might like by getting an idea of their character motivations. If someone wants to start their own martial arts school, they'll probably be interested in adventures that involve beating up all of the members of an evil dojo to expose what bullshit their fighting style is.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This is akin to asking why special forces commandoes don't just kill all the politicians and take power. They do, and it's called a coup, but there are compelling reasons not to perform one.

But these reasons don't exist in D&D, at least for the heroic fantasy pastiche it represents. Society is a simply lot less enlightened. People killing their old king and declaring themselves the new king is not shocking, first of all because it happens all of the time--I mean, seriously, how many battles for territory and succession happened just in the Dark Ages, let alone D&D? And second of all because peoples' lives are probably not going to get any worse than they are now. Seriously, how many coups in ancient times have been thwarted, let alone initiated, by popular revolt just because people protest against illegitimate government? It happens all the time in the modern world because the idea of the social contract has been invented, but since D&D is a heroic fantasy pastiche every single ruler is illegitimate.

But most importantly, in D&D the special forces commandos are actually strong enough to take on the entire Army and Navy and police force without even caring. It'd seriously be like what would happen if Vegeta declared himself king of the world after killing Goku and the Z fighters. At least until Frieza and Cell and Majin Buu showed up, what the fuck is anyone going to do if they don't like what he's doing? He can nuke your entire country in seconds without even caring. The Necromancer King's projection of power is a lot more limited, but if the people disagree with what he's doing he can summon a trio of balors to kill literally everyone in the city that he doesn't like.

First off, economics. The king has economic clout - even if he doesn't personally have an immense fortune, he holds the reins of his kingdom's economic means of production.

lolwhat? This is a heroic fantasy pastiche. The economy completely fucked six-ways from Sunday even when functioning at all cylinders. People might get a little nervous when the king gets ganked, but not only are they probably deadened to this (see above) but the economy is so weak that the output would seriously go from something like 1000 bales of cotton to 500 bales per year. Losing half of your output is catastrophic in a modern economy, but in these times you probably wouldn't even notice that the economy has technically been in a depression for the last 10 years.

If the current king has agreements with neighboring nations, they'll understandably defend his government, because a replacement government might not honor those agreements.

That's retarded. In the real world, do nations become social pariahs just because their leaders get assassinated or have to resign from scandals? I mean, damn, the new guy might decide not to honor the old alliances!!

What would actually happen is that the other governments would probably contact the new guys and see if they would still uphold the old pacts and treaties. If they agree to do it, no skin off of their nose. Treaties will exist to promise aid in case some upstarts start shit, but if the coup seriously lasts less than an hour then what's going to be the consequence if the others decide to attempt to work with the newcomers rather than start a pointless fight?

[Swordslinger]

The kind of scenario you're proposing that the quality of an adventure is somehow dependent on length has a word for it: it's called FILLER.

I guess then every Shadowrun adventure is nothing but filler. Getting past the security and getting to the goal (whether assassination, rescue or an artifact hunt) is a major part of the story. And that makes for cinematic style drama. Part of the thing that makes the quest epic is that you're killing the emperor inside his heavily guarded fortress.

By teleporting you're removing the setting. It doesn't matter if you're fighting in an abandoned house, a fortress or the heart of the Nine Hells. It's just one encounter that could have happened anywhere. It just gives the PCs tunnel vision and they lose sight of the world.

And yeah, I guess if you want to get down to it, some of it is "filler", but so is a lot of movies. You could probably have cut out the majority of Lord of Rings as just filler. You didn't have to have them fight Orcs in Moria, the Nazgul didn't have to catch Frodo on Weathertop, you didn't need the scene with the lake of the dead trying to pull Frodo in. But you know, those are all memorable and cool scenes. Give me my filler.

It's one thing to not want video game "random encounters." That's fine. But journeys along the way can contribute tension, atmosphere and even introduce new characters.

[RobbyPants]

The important questions are these: What is an encounter and what is skipping?

Why sneaking, bribing, or bluffing one's way past the guards at the gate guard perfectly acceptable while climbing the wall, digging a tunnel under the wall, or just disintegrating a section of the wall is not?

Because one involves interacting with the encounter and the other doesn't. There's no drama in digging underground, because there's no chance of failure, as there would be with sneaking or bluffing your way past the guards.

Lets put it this way: if you had to do X, and you could do it in two ways, would you choose the one that exposes you to hostile poky bits of metal, or the one that has no chance of failure and getting stabbed? Unless your PC is a suicidal adrenaline junkie, why would they take the first option?

I'm not saying you can't have other fights. They just need a reason to happen. If the PCs just start getting into fights that they don't even have to, they start to look a lot less like heroes and a lot more like murderers.

"Why did you kill all those orcs when you could have just teleported in and got the item?"

"... I hate orcs."

[echoVanguard]

since D&D is a heroic fantasy pastiche every single ruler is illegitimate.

I'm completely boggled by this statement. What logic are you using to arrive at this conclusion?

The Necromancer King's projection of power is a lot more limited, but if the people disagree with what he's doing he can summon a trio of balors to kill literally everyone in the city that he doesn't like.

And other high-level characters can stop the balors or the Necromancer King. Logically speaking, if characters of level X support agenda A, then other characters of level ~X will exist that support agenda B.

lolwhat? This is a heroic fantasy pastiche. The economy completely fucked six-ways from Sunday even when functioning at all cylinders. People might get a little nervous when the king gets ganked, but not only are they probably deadened to this (see above) but the economy is so weak that the output would seriously go from something like 1000 bales of cotton to 500 bales per year. Losing half of your output is catastrophic in a modern economy, but in these times you probably wouldn't even notice that the economy has technically been in a depression for the last 10 years.

You keep using the idea that D&D is a heroic fantasy pastiche to justify statements that have no basis in that idea. That's like saying that a steampunk game can't have socialist governments. The two ideas have literally nothing to do with each other.

That's retarded. In the real world, do nations become social pariahs just because their leaders get assassinated or have to resign from scandals? I mean, damn, the new guy might decide not to honor the old alliances!!

What would actually happen is that the other governments would probably contact the new guys and see if they would still uphold the old pacts and treaties. If they agree to do it, no skin off of their nose. Treaties will exist to promise aid in case some upstarts start shit, but if the coup seriously lasts less than an hour then what's going to be the consequence if the others decide to attempt to work with the newcomers rather than start a pointless fight?

So, essentially, you're advocating that all nations in D&D settings operate in a political vacuum?

You're trying to apply logic to a problem and insisting that any inconsistencies in your conclusion are irrelevant because logic doesn't apply to them. You need to make up your mind.

echo

[Swordslinger]

Lets put it this way: if you had to do X, and you could do it in two ways, would you choose the one that exposes you to hostile poky bits of metal, or the one that has no chance of failure and getting stabbed? Unless your PC is a suicidal adrenaline junkie, why would they take the first option?

The issue isn't that people wouldn't logically use teleport, it's that teleport shouldn't exist or should have limits. It's just too powerful. In Shadowrun you deal with security because there is no quick fix to bypass it. D&D needs to be the same way.

[echoVanguard]

Lets put it this way: if you had to do X, and you could do it in two ways, would you choose the one that exposes you to hostile poky bits of metal, or the one that has no chance of failure and getting stabbed? Unless your PC is a suicidal adrenaline junkie, why would they take the first option?

The issue isn't that people wouldn't logically use teleport, it's that teleport shouldn't exist or should have limits. It's just too powerful. In Shadowrun you deal with security because there is no quick fix to bypass it. D&D needs to be the same way.

One could probably make a case that Teleportation is intrinsically a bad idea because it essentially renders most of existence irrelevant. Glen Cook's The Black Company universe has no teleportation and gains a great deal of gravitas from that exclusion.

echo

[Username17]

since D&D is a heroic fantasy pastiche every single ruler is illegitimate.

I'm completely boggled by this statement. What logic are you using to arrive at this conclusion?

That's what feudalism is. There's no reason for one person to be on top instead of another. They didn't get elected, they just stabbed people until everyone fell into line - or won the birth lottery by having a parent who did.

If you swing a sword around at eye level until someone puts a crown on your head, you have literally exactly as much right to call yourself the government as anyone who came before you. The old Gygaxian thing where when you hit 9th level you instantly became landed gentry was actually one of the most sensible things in the whole book. Which granted isn't much of a challenge because we're talking AD&D, but it's nonetheless true.

-Username17

[Novembermike]

The issue isn't that people wouldn't logically use teleport, it's that teleport shouldn't exist or should have limits. It's just too powerful. In Shadowrun you deal with security because there is no quick fix to bypass it. D&D needs to be the same way.

Yeah, it's like how heroic fantasy tends to get worse the more fast travel there is. In the WoT series tehre was a serious decrease in the story quality once everyone learned how to Travel. Individual settings became less distinct and he had to make up reasons for characters not to teleport around to solve all their problems. The best perspective in the later books was Mat's in large part because there was an actual setting around him with customs that he had to work around.

The Malazan series worked around this by having small groups be able to travel quickly but focusing on large armies that had to move at a more reasonable speed. Hell, one of the scariest characters in it was a General whose only major power was the ability to create large gates that his army could move through.

[Wrathzog]

And other high-level characters can stop the balors or the Necromancer King. Logically speaking, if characters of level X support agenda A, then other characters of level ~X will exist that support agenda B.

Not necessarily. Logically speaking, if the Agenda A guys have been hunting Agenda B guys into extinction over the course of hundreds of years because of a disagreement... then there won't be Level ~X guys that support Agenda B. They've been dead for years.

[wotmaniac]

If I can bind demons to do tasks for me and the local king can't, and he doesn't have anyone on a leash that can do it for him,

... then he's a small fish in a small pond.

It's not like that. In D&D the gap in power between levels of authority is immense. Not just soft political power but actual power. The lich-king's second in command can't replace him because he does not have enough power to actually do so.

so .... the 18th-level lich-king's second in command is, what, a 7th-level wannabe?
I stand by my statement.

And because it's seriously possible in D&D to eliminate entire armies without breaking a sweat,

then your opponent has failed to fully integrate his battlefield.
back to the small pond.

Why are the king's personal wizards listening to him at all if he's a vanilla 4th-level aristocrat? The only reason why they would is either out of personal loyalty (which is ridiculously unstable, especially with the extreme social darwinism of these times) or out of respect of the social contract (which hasn't been invented yet and probably will never be).

a) this is a shallow and short-sighted perception of political machinations -- echo only barely scratched the surface ;
b) history may disagree with you to some degree.

The kind of scenario you're proposing that the quality of an adventure is somehow dependent on length has a word for it: it's called FILLER. Only hacks include irrelevant shit like having a non-plot advancing encounter just because they feel a 'real' adventure needs to last for several hours. And yes, this pertains to stupid shit such as 'random guards in the hall' or 'dragon guarding the throne room'. People have hundreds of hours logged of playing video games or playing TTRPGs, a combat that only exist for the sake of combat is boring and repetitive. We've seen that shit a million times.

if the only thing you ever encounter is specifically plot-related, then you have a very shallow world. The filler is intended to give you the sense that there is actually stuff going on in the world that isn't directly tied to the plot -- it's necessary in order for the world to "feel" real ... which itself is instrumental in allowing for immersion.
If you're just running a one-off dungeon crawl, then you're right, it's irrelevant. However, if you're attempting anything resembling depth in your world-building, then some amount of filler is almost required.

Design adventures that people actually want to go on.

if adventure modules weren't profitable, then they wouldn't keep writing them.
but yet somebody keeps buying them.

Here's the deal on that one:
by their very design, adventure modules are meant to be plug-n-play. In all practicality, modules are written for those who are otherwise unable to come up with their own stuff -- either due to time-constraints, drive, or competence level. either way, these people aren't all that concerned with the level of sophistication inherent in their adventures (or at least consider it a fair trade-off for not having to do the work themselves). If the level of sophistication is not up to your liking, then it's up to you to either step up to the plate or lower your expectations -- you can't have your cake and eat it too. As it was mentioned earlier -- an anonymous module writer can't possibly be expected to compensate for every possible player action ... well, not and still maintain its plug-n-play functionality.
This goes back to group mentality -- if they know that you are running a module, then they are gonna have to have certain expectations. It's just an inherent limitation in the medium.

[echoVanguard]

since D&D is a heroic fantasy pastiche every single ruler is illegitimate.

I'm completely boggled by this statement. What logic are you using to arrive at this conclusion?

That's what feudalism is. There's no reason for one person to be on top instead of another. They didn't get elected, they just stabbed people until everyone fell into line - or won the birth lottery by having a parent who did.

If you swing a sword around at eye level until someone puts a crown on your head, you have literally exactly as much right to call yourself the government as anyone who came before you. The old Gygaxian thing where when you hit 9th level you instantly became landed gentry was actually one of the most sensible things in the whole book. Which granted isn't much of a challenge because we're talking AD&D, but it's nonetheless true.

-Username17

Dead wrong. Feudalism is defined as "a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour", which has absolutely nothing to do with political legitimacy. You're conflating feudalism with realist politics. There's also a gaping hole in the assertion of illegitimacy in D&D if you fail to include numinous legitimacy - a particular ruler might very well have the favor of a priesthood or other organization, or even an actual god.

echo

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm completely boggled by this statement. What logic are you using to arrive at this conclusion?

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-contract.htm
"
Over the millennia, social contracts have changed, and much for the better. Many of the early societies were run by tyrants -- that is, monarchs who ruled slaves. Although these arrangements provided the group with a military defense, law and order, and a property and market system, they could not be called social contracts. That's because a social contract is an agreement among society, and slaves do not agree to their enslavement. However, some monarchies were less tyrannical than others, and actually served as a bridge to modern-day democracies. For example, many of the British monarchs were popular and beloved by their people. In this case, we could say that a social contract existed, because citizens agreed to pledge their loyalty to the Crown in return for the law and order and strength through numbers that the Crown provided. In the last two centuries, of course, the social contract has become even more enlightened, with the rise of democratic participation and individual rights, which maximizes each citizen's contribution and agreement to the contract."

If a king decides that taxes are going to go up from 15% to 25%, the peasants can't just suddenly up and say that they're going to be at 15% anyway, not without overthrowing the king. His rulership is illegitimate and only exists by force.

And other high-level characters can stop the balors or the Necromancer King. Logically speaking, if characters of level X support agenda A, then other characters of level ~X will exist that support agenda B.

Big deal! That doesn't change the fact that without some other more powerful character(s) kicking his ass the Necromancer King can still personally kick the asses of all of his subjects on a whim. The wandering paladin killing the NK isn't striking a blow for peasants rights unless he installs a democracy in its place. Either someone else equally powerful steps up to the plate (the Barbarian Emporer, the Winter Queen, the Volcano Duke, etc..) or the kingdom descends into anarchy and fractures until someone is able to take control of the smaller bits (the Chilly Princess, the Wild Prince, the Fire Baron, etc.) or it dissolves utterly. And D&D has no shortages of greedy badasses. Unless the paladin stays and defends his holdings this is what happens.

You keep using the idea that D&D is a heroic fantasy pastiche to justify statements that have no basis in that idea.

If someone makes a heroic fantasy game that isn't based upon pre-Industrial Age times then you'd have something. But before this time period you would have at the very best isolated pockets of laissez-faire capitalism. If someone actually made a popular D&D setting that had more enlightened government than feudalism then I wouldn't hold it as an assumption. You may as well say that heroic fantasy doesn't necessitate castles and swords and monarchy. That's technically true, but hasn't happened in practice and likely never will.

So, essentially, you're advocating that all nations in D&D settings operate in a political vacuum?

No, of course not. I'm just asking you not to unthinkingly apply premises that only apply to the modern world. There are similarities between modern real world realpolitics and the kind that would logically exist inside of a heroic fantasy Dark Age Europe landscape, but not a lot.

Your dumbass examples are easy to shoot down because it's child's play to find examples in the real world where your statements don't hold. When you throw in the extreme social darwinism to an extent not seen even in the worst of history and the intense power stratification into the mix it breaks your premises down even more.

[FatR]

This is actually a decent question. I'd say that an adventure is usually going to consist of certain parts. Assassinating a king might require you to get inside the castle walls, blend in with the surrounding people, figure out where the king is and finally killing him. Now, a wizard is going to trivializing a number of those parts (teleport inside the gate, make an illusion for a disguise, charm someone to tell you where the king is and then just walk in there) which is generally a negative since it takes out a lot of the roleplaying, but it isn't skipping. I'd say skipping is when the player can simply scry out the king's location and send a teleporting rape squad in. Then there's no real adventure at all, just a single action you take.

That's not the problem with "skipping" or "knot-cutting" or whatever, that's the problem with inserting low-level shit into high-level adventures. Almost any high-level character in any medium will be techinically able to "skip" such adventure by either levelling the entire goddamn castle or creating some sort of screw-you area effect that will take out everyone not on the same level as him within the area.

And while you, 4rry squad, seem to, for some incomprehensible reason, have a hard-on on having adventures follow exactly the same scheme from level 1 to level 30, this really only happens in computer games, and in large part because they need to artificially boost playtime. In other mediums, high-power characters approach their adventures in drastically different ways than vanilla action heroes. In particular, "travel to the next plot point" tends not to be a problem, without invoking obstacles of which the most mundane is distance measured in lightyears.

[Novembermike]

That's not the problem with "skipping" or "knot-cutting" or whatever, that's the problem with inserting low-level shit into high-level adventures. Almost any high-level character in any medium will be techinically able to "skip" such adventure by either levelling the entire goddamn castle or creating some sort of screw-you area effect that will take out everyone not on the same level as him within the area.

Ok, let's take a high level party. Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue and Bard. How would they go about that adventure?

[erik]

Bard/Rogue with diplomancy/charm whatever.

Bard/Rogue with UMD and useful scrolls.

I don't know what the Ranger and Barbarian are doing in high level adventurers... wishing they were a druid's animal companion maybe.

[Novembermike]

Yeah, the problem I have with people saying "High level adventure" is that it usually means "Wizards cast cool spells and the warriors follow them".

[Wrathzog]

by their very design, adventure modules are meant to be plug-n-play. In all practicality, modules are written for those who are otherwise unable to come up with their own stuff -- either due to time-constraints, drive, or competence level. either way, these people aren't all that concerned with the level of sophistication inherent in their adventures

This was more or less where I was trying to go with that entire discussion. I'm glad I'm not insane.

Yeah, the problem I have with people saying "High level adventure" is that it usually means "Wizards cast cool spells and the warriors carry their loot".

Fixed that for you.

[FatR]

Ok, let's take a high level party. Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue and Bard. How would they go about that adventure?

Barbarian and Ranger aren't viable concepts for high-level play to begin with. Tome Barbarian, which is given more mechanically apprpopriate abilities (even though the concept still sucks) will send his horde to raze the castle I guess, before personally engaging people that matter, or just walk through the guards, being practically invulnerable to them. Rogue can easily sneak/magically move past the guards or diplomance them, and the same can be said of a Bard.

[wotmaniac]

This was more or less where I was trying to go with that entire discussion. I'm glad I'm not insane.

either that, or we both are.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Dead wrong. Feudalism is defined as "a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour", which has absolutely nothing to do with political legitimacy. You're conflating feudalism with realist politics. There's also a gaping hole in the assertion of illegitimacy in D&D if you fail to include numinous legitimacy - a particular ruler might very well have the favor of a priesthood or other organization, or even an actual god.

That doesn't mean jack shit. The people being ruled have no say so in how they're ruled under that government.

Feudalism is a very crude form of autocracy, which is by definition illegitimate because they are not beholden to the people they govern; the only way the people get a say-so is by dissolving the autocracy. And because despots in D&D actually have enough power to kick the asses of every soldier in their army this never happens.

so .... the 18th-level lich-king's second in command is, what, a 7th-level wannabe?
I stand by my statement.

D&D isn't like the real world. Even the greatest genius in the world is only so by a couple of IQ points. The difference in strength between the world's strongest weightlifter and the world's 10000th strongest weightlifter is in the low double-digits.

The 18th-level lich king's second in command is a 7th-level wannabe because said wannabe may literally be the second-strongest person in the area he governments. The population dynamics of D&D usually isn't that sharp (13th or 14th level is more likely) but it's certainly possible.

then your opponent has failed to fully integrate his battlefield.

There's no 'integrating the battlefield'. That's seriously how D&D (or other high-powered superheroic fiction) works-- even 4th Edition when personal power is at its lowest. It doesn't matter that Alexander the Great is fielding a 20,000-strong army fully equipped with the latest advantages in Iron Age technology; the Lich-King could seriously take a fucking nap in the middle of the entire army at the exact place where Alexander's fights best. They wouldn't even scratch him.

a) this is a shallow and short-sighted perception of political machinations -- echo only barely scratched the surface ;

No, that's exactly what happens. King Tut's priests can't just gank him and declare themselves the king if the army and peasants refuse to go along. They need to have the support of some other faction. In D&D, if the army and peasants refuse to go along with the king's magicians' coup, the wizards turbonuke people until they fall in line. It doesn't matter how much they flail, they can't win.

That's pretty much what happens in the real world, too. Genghis couldn't really give a shit whether or not people wanted his Mongols there or considered him the rightful ruler; he just whupped their asses with his awesome army. Only in D&D, one person can seriously have as much power as a 10,000 strong army.

if the only thing you ever encounter is specifically plot-related, then you have a very shallow world.

You're mixing up Padding with the Law of Conversation of Detail.

[Lago PARANOIA]

High-level adventures and concepts are hard to come up with because people have an easier time coming up with obstacles that can inconvenience King Arthur than Superman. If Green Lantern or Goku was a character in Star Wars then you wouldn't even have a movie, because the things that made it so hard for Luke and friends to take on the Death Star are barely even a sniffle for those guys,

That said, if you have trouble coming up with high-level plots then limit the level of the game. That's perfectly reasonable. What's not cool is to pretend to give people high-level toys and then take them all away when it would hurt your story.