A New Game's SGT

[Foxwarrior]

What sort of noncombat challenges would you like characters of various levels (I propose Medium, High, and Excessive as the terminology; Low is normal person stuff) to be able to beat (with/without effort)?

[Juton]

EDIT: A game's SGT will depend entirely on what expectations you, the designers and the players have. Generally we expect a level appropriate character to be able to handle level appropriate challenges. It also depends a lot on the game itself, like what genre it is, does it use levels, etc.

[Foxwarrior]

Fantasy RPG with plenty of magic. Problems that can be solved with massed manpower are more desirable than in D&D; preferably, massed manpower with fancy items and high-level characters with fancy items should have similar numbers of new problems for them to solve.

[Juton]

It depends on whether you want your wizards (or whatever you call the magicians) to be able to be able to do everything themselves or if they are specialized and a team of wizards is needed to adventure properly. If a character isn't expected to be able to do everything them selves a passing grade for the SGT may be something like 20% as opposed to 50% because they can't do everything themselves.

Common out of combat challenges involve things like getting around, getting food and shelter, interacting with potentates and gathering information. For instance getting around can be done by walking, then magic horse, flying carpet then by teleport at the higher levels. There is a lot of flexibility in there so you could have two or even three types of teleport, each being more awesome than the next.

[Foxwarrior]

To put "getting around" into a more SGTish format:

Medium Level:

* Get to the top of a locked tower.

* Travel over that mountain range.

High Level:

* Get to that flying island.

* Reach the subterranean cavern.

* Cross the ocean.

Excessive Level:

* Visit the moon.

[Previn]

To put "getting around" into a more SGTish format:

Medium Level:

* Get to the top of a locked tower.

* Travel over that mountain range.

How are those not low?

[Foxwarrior]

Maybe they are, and so is getting to a flying island, if you're allowed to build a hot air balloon. Perhaps this needs to be defined better.

[Chamomile]

You're going about this backwards. Build your SGT arbitrarily first, using whatever benchmarks you think are appropriate for the game you are making. When making your own game, the question of "what should a level 5 character be able to succeed at roughly 50% of the time" is answered with "whatever you think is cool." For a D&D-style game, killing four Orcs single-handed is a low-level challenge, while in a Conan-based game the same scenario is mid- or high-level. Then after you have a SGT, make sure your PC archetypes all have the right odds of success for it.

[erik]

Maybe they are, and so is getting to a flying island, if you're allowed to build a hot air balloon. Perhaps this needs to be defined better.

Well, the locked tower and crossing a mountain range are things that unremarkable adolescents can perform without notable technology. Sounds low level to me. *shrug*

This whole endeavor is a bit wonky. How could we know what 'level' things are without knowing what you are supposed to be doing? Maybe this is a game where you are kids, or mice or something. I don't know. Plenty of magic doesn't mean anything much, just that you have plenty of technology.

If something is solved with technology then it isn't really level dependent unless that tech is only usable at certain levels.

[hyzmarca]

Low Challenge: Bed Skanky Wench
Medium Challenge: Bed Comely Wench
High Challenge: Bed Feisty Wench
Epic Challenge: Find Real Love

[Sigil]

Low Challenge: Bed Skanky Wench
Medium Challenge: Bed Comely Wench
High Challenge: Bed Feisty Wench
Epic Challenge: Find Real Love

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser RPG?

[Stubbazubba]

You're going about this backwards. Build your SGT arbitrarily first, using whatever benchmarks you think are appropriate for the game you are making. When making your own game, the question of "what should a level 5 character be able to succeed at roughly 50% of the time" is answered with "whatever you think is cool." For a D&D-style game, killing four Orcs single-handed is a low-level challenge, while in a Conan-based game the same scenario is mid- or high-level. Then after you have a SGT, make sure your PC archetypes all have the right odds of success for it.

QFT.

You can design the world with whatever you want, and then just make sure the classes/possible builds are compatible. Set your low end and your high end, and fill in all the middle.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Medium:
- Your airship crashed after being attacked by sky pirates, and now you are stranded in the desert without appropriate gear or much food. Use your abilities to survive, then escape.

High:
- An earthquake has caused major damage to your city. Use your abilities to help evacuate the trouble zones and provide for the survival of refugees.

Excessive:
- Someone blew up the moon with a bunch of nuclear bombs, and now massive irradiated rocks are raining down from the sky. Make sure the parts of the world you like survive.

[Dean]

MEDIUM

-Sneak into or out of a bandit camp

-Break out of jail

-Sneak up on and take out a guard in one blow

-Escape a crumbling temple

-Flee an angry mob

-Ride back to town fast enough so that you outpace the dragon

-Fight an Ogre

-Seduce an Ogre

[Ice9]

Stuff

Those sound pretty good. I'll try some "finding stuff" challenges.

Medium:
The mcguffin is in one of the many abandoned forts along a mountain range. There might be ghosts or bandits living there now.

High:
The mcguffin is in an egg, which is in a Sahaguin, which is in a dragon turtle, which constantly swims around the world's oceans*. It's warded against direct divination, and there are several different matching turtles in circulation - all of which are considered holy animals by the Sahaguin. If the turtle is slain, the dozen Sahaguin inside (all Rogues, with excellent stealth skills and cloaks of "turn into sea creature") will scatter and try to flee and hide. One of them has the real egg, the others have replicas which are basically booby traps.

Excessive:
The mcguffin is a jerk wizard who figured out how to turn himself into a story. Whenever enough people in an area read the story, he wakes up, possesses someone, and begins distributing more copies and building a power base. The text itself isn't magical except at the moment a critical mass is reached and he comes through. He's been pretty successful in distribution, and copies of the story are all around the world. Some of them are held by collectors who know what it is, and still want it - either to learn his method or just for the hell of it. And some of those collectors are very powerful people. You need to either destroy or seal away (in your own control) every single copy.

*I'm not really clear how adding a second fleeing animal and a bunch of stationary stuff is supposed to make it any more secure.

[Ice9]

I think combat is going to be the hardest thing to do this way, for a game that's not already defined. I mean, sure, you can do simple stuff like "how many normal soldiers is a ____ challenge", but when it gets to monsters, there isn't any kind of overall standard for how tough a given thing is.

Trolls, for example. Bridge dweller that can be chased away by a large angry goat? Regenerating ogre that can kill a bunch of normal people in a cave but not take on a significant force in the open? Protean horror-being that could eat a town, no problem, unless somebody beyond human limits intervenes? Any of those are possible, so saying "slay a Troll single-handed" as a Medium challenge tells you almost nothing.