Swordsmen and Children

[Tenrin]

Totally on board for easy classes. In my experience I've only found 2 or 3 other players that actually care about doing the 'advanced' stuff and when I play it's usually just a guy that cuts stuff in half anyway because I'm too lazy/bad at pulling off the 'advanced' stuff anyway (when I play. When I DM i can go all out). It would also be nice if cutting dudes in half was actually easy to do, so I don't have to go all 3.5 Fighter and dumpster dive just to pull that off.

Also: Jargon Derail!
Trevor is good for the newbie.
Steve is good for douchebag player (because it's what I'm used to)
Timtom should be the crap-covered farmer (because that what my friends and I use irl for it)
Gonna suggest Oglethorpe or Gazeebo for the monster that lacks conceptual space.

Edit: VVV Exactly the Oglethorpe I was going for. Look at him, he's just an orange splotch with a face. Pretty much what I think of when someone references a monster I know nothing about.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I find I often forget a lot of what my characters can do, so I too think that easy to play classes are a good thing.

Gonna suggest Oglethorpe or Gazeebo for the monster that lacks conceptual space.

I'd go with Gazebo.



Oglethorpe just makes me think of this:

[Username17]

I'm just going to keep on using "Steve" as a name for a character or monster whose abilities cannot be predicted or ascertained from past experience. Most likely either from conceptual space violation or from the character being a new addition to the game. So for example, if "Chaos Demons" show how chaotic they are by all having different powers, then it isn't important that they are "Chaos Demons" because each one has unique bullshit powers. In short, you would be just as well to write the creature's actual name down as their supposed type. So they might as well be "Type: Steve". Hence the appellation.

Anyway, I was thinking about how to assign levels to things, and it is of course no easy task. An ability is worthless if it interacts with something that is not in play for any reason. The ability to kill a god is meaningless if you never fight one, the ability to close time portals is meaningless if there aren't any open ones. An ability is powerful if and only if it is especially useful in the adventures you actually have. In short, to make the level system from scratch the thing to do is to write out your "High Adventures on the Lower Planes" adventure seeds and then work backwards to see what the adventurers could use.

Local Adventures
At the lowest level, characters adventure wherever they are by necessity. They lack the ability to mount a serious overland campaign to get somewhere other than where they happen to be. This is the default assumption of all the original D&D materials and it is this that the writers of 4e were trying to channel with their points of light BS. It was originally like this because the campaign settings weren't written down and the MC was seriously just making this shit up as he went along. You had to adventure in the town you started in and the dungeon nearby because the rest of the kingdom hadn't been drawn on the map. And sure, Gygax tried to railroad that shit by having the road blocked by OMGWTF FLOCKS OF MANTICORES until you hit level 9. But at the point where players don't have a lot of connection to the game, there really isn't much reason for them to pull up stakes and leave. So for the player new to the game, one place is as good as another and they might as well adventure directly in their own surroundings. Such adventures could include...

• A merchant's daughter was kidnapped by goblin thugs. Track them to their lair outside town, break down the door, and stab them in the face.
• Rival guilds are getting into it and one hires the party to protect itself from the other. Notice the sneaking enemies and stab them in the face.
• A wicked, rabble rousing priest is getting people to do some of the old time religion. Find the cult operation, sneak in, and stab them in the face.
• A tomb that has a bunch of treasure in it has seen better days and is now swarming with zombies. Break down the door, bypass the old curses and traps, and stab them in the face.
• Someone in town is a werewolf and a murderer. Find the murder scene, track the killer, and stab him in the face.
• A local alchemist has apparently become trapped in his lab. Break down the door, bypass the magical hazards, and find the alchemist.

Just for a start. So the idea is that whether someone is playing a Berserker or a Knight or a Wizard, they should be able to contribute in all of these encounters. The first thing that leaps out at me is that minimal competence at sneaking and noticing should be mandatory on every adventurer. Even if they are a berserker. It is not cool to leave Trevor at home because you have to sneak in to the cultist compound before you do the face stabbing. Also, of course, face stabbing is something that every class needs to do in their own effective and unique fashion.

But it also brings up some ideas of capabilities that need to appear on some characters but do not in fact need to appear on all. It's OK if the Scout is the character who does the tracking, it's OK if the Rogue is the character who handles the cursed runes on the derelict tomb. But it is also important that enough classes can handle those things one way or the other that none of the classes are "required". For fuck's sake, you have 4-6 players and there are 13 or more character classes. A back of the envelope calculation says that if "only" 5 of 13 classes could handle a specific problem, that 14% of 4 player parties would be stumped. And that's probably kind of high.

-Username17

[For Valor]

In that list there, I honestly expected the last one to go "A local alchemist has apparently become trapped in his lab. Break down the door, bypass the magical hazards, and stab him in the face."

Which really threw me off.

ONTOPIC:
If you make it so that only a small number of people are unable to deal with certain problems, it makes each class with that ability less speshul. I think dealing w/environmental hazards could be put under skills, so that anybody can trapfind and if your 4-person party doesn't split up the assignments, they deserve to be fucked.

[Username17]

So there can be of course a bunch more lowest level adventures. They don't have to be "Track the rats in the sewers, find them, and stab them in the face." But of course, they totally could be. There is a tradition of that sort of thing, and it works OK. But for the moment I want to think a bit about the next step: the slightly higher level adventures.

Questing Adventures
In fantasy adventure gaming there comes a time when characters are too powerful to deal with the stuff that was in and around the town the characters started in. After all, since the players have been there, by the time they are powerful enough to wipe out their own starting characters without a second thought it is unreasonable to expect there to be any monsters in or around town that can challenge them. After all, if any such creatures existed, why are the PCs still alive?

A common, and lazy, approach to this situation is to have the area all around the newbie zone filled with increasingly bad ass monsters. This is in essence the "Points of Light" garbage. The idea is simply that the party goes in any direction and they run into level appropriate monsters. That makes the world feel extremely bullshit, in a "How did this village survive when it is completely fucking surrounded by manticores!?" sort of way. But it's completely unnecessary. Once the players are high enough level to have outgrown their starting location, the MC and players can both probably fairly accurately describe what it is that they want to do, so they could presumably go on a quest. It's here that a more Points of Darkness type scenario pans out nicely - the PCs can jolly well go to the higher level stuff!. It doesn't matter if the really powerful shit is common or rare, because the party will actually fight it at the rate of however many fights you can squeeze into the sessions you have before Carl moves to Spokane and the game dissolves. And long journeys can be passed with a travel montage and some subtitles that say "three weeks later" or something. This takes less actual table time than discussion of why the village was still standing if there are fucking beholders living within walking distance of city hall or how the player characters got to this place to begin with if the roads are patrolled by medusa cavalry.

So here are some adventures that these characters can have:

• The BBEG is putting together an army of orcs/giants/gingerbread/demons/whatever. What are you gonna do about it? Well, you're going to travel to the war front, you're going to sneak around the edges, you're going to track the force depositions, you're going to travel back to some other kingdom that can help, you're going to persuade them to help you, you're going to use their diversion to sneak into the BBEG's throne room and you're going to stab him in the face.
• An ancient fortress full of lost secrets and ancient evils has been located, what are you gonna do about it? Well, you're going to research about the ancient fortress, you're going to travel to the site, you're going to break down the door, you're going to bypass the ancient curses, you're going to find the ancient evils, and you're going to stab them in the face.
• A powerful BBEG is standing on a picturesque tower bringing forth some hideous calamity that will make life all icky and bad for everyone in the world, what are you gonna do about it? Well, you're going to research the curse, you're going to travel to the place where you need to be to get the shit you need to stop it, you're going to find that stuff, you're going to travel to his evil tower, you're going to break down the door, and stab him in the face. Then you'll use that Macguffin you got earlier to bypass the world curse.
• Drugs are showing up in town that turn people into vampires or something, what are you gonna do about it? Well, you're going to find the local distributor, you're going to persuade him to give you a bunch of exposition, you're going to travel to the evil swamp where it is made, you're going to track the villains in question, and you're going to stab them in the face.
• You find out that even later in the campaign, you're going to be faced with some awakening badass horror or minor god or something. What are you gonna do about it? Well, you're going to research whatever Achilles Heal it appears to have that made it go to sleep or get imprisoned or whatever in the first place, you're going to travel to wherever it last was, you're going to find someone who knows why it isn't there anymore, you're going to persuade them to help you get it, you're going to bypass the ancient curses on it, you're going to meet the villains who are racing you for the artifact and you're going to stab them in the face.
• An evil portal to nasty icky land has opened somewhere, what are you gonna do about it? You're going to research a potential method of closing the damn thing, you're going to travel to the gateway, you're going to sneak in, you're going to break the requisite runic thingy, you're going to have a bunch of angry demons on your hands and you're going to stab them in the face.
• A merchant caravan is coming into town and they want to go onward, but there are bandits/pirates/monsters, what are you gonna do about it? You're going to persuade the merchants to take you on as guides/guards, you're going to travel to wherever the dacoity is going down, you're going to find the bandits and stab them in the face. Then you are going to track them back to their hideout where the bandit king is, you're going to break down the door, and you're going to stab him in the face too.

And there we go. Nothing really world ending in there, but characters now have to interact with the research, persuasion, and especially the travel minigames. They have to be able to take boats places or get a mule train and go far away to places that might be hot or snowy or dry or festering swamps.

And the big thing here is that in many cases, having completed the quest, the PCs will now have a secret base of their very own or a powerful artifact, or both. That in short, upon completing that quest it is time for the PCs to seriously consider owning some land and playing Sim City.

-Username17

[shirak]

Any EZ Class should have a positive reinforcement mechanic built in. So if Trevor walks around the dungeon admiring the local architecture he gets to Detect Traps but if he declares he is Detecting Traps he gets a bonus.

Basically, if Trevor chooses to interact with the game he should be rewarded.

The reverse, punishing Trevor for not paying attention/painting his nails at the table/being fucking twelve is NOT recommended.

[Sashi]

Positive reinforcement can quickly morph to punishment if Trevor's in the same game as Steve the jerk.

[shirak]

Positive reinforcement can quickly morph to punishment if Trevor's in the same game as Steve the jerk.

I am fully on board with punishing Steve for bad behavior. Jerk probably deserves it. And positive reinforcement works better in forming new habits while the reverse is true for old habits. Ideally, the MC will use both on Steve.

Btw, wasn't Steve the unknown monster? And not the asshole player? Color me Ignorant Of Our Latest Naming Scheme.

[Sashi]

It's all a matter of mindset. People tend to perceive getting a +1 if you do something as being positive reinforcement and not getting a -1 if you do something as negative reinforcement, but the two are mathematically identical.

The easiest scenario to turn negative is for Steve to recognize this and berate Trevor for not playing right or optimally.

The only slightly less easy scenario is for Trevor to just start assuming he gets the +1 bonus all the time, at which point you have to remind him he didn't say the magic word and has to subtract from his rolls, which is negative reinforcement.

[Username17]

Yeah, various people have various ideas for who they think "Steve" should be. I am under no circumstances going to use any of them except the one that I use: Steve being the unextrapolatable character/monster. Using "Steve" as a stand-in for a jerky player or for a character who has no meaningful contribution to the story seems unnecessary in the extreme, and I won't do it.

But anyway, it's time to talk about the next wave of adventure, and what people need to be able to do. So let's talk about the:

Nation Building Adventures
The player characters have at this point some real estate. Whether they ran through a goblin warren stabbing everyone in the face or smashed the life gem of the Ghost King, the fact remains that there was totally a building there, and by right of conquest it now belongs to the player characters. Historically it has usually been assumed that the players would wander away from a newly captured fortress made of solid brass despite nominally being on a quest for wealth and power. This is absurd, but the assumption has been made time and time again because the MCs and game designers of the past have lacked the impetus to make adventures that assumed that characters were genuinely holding their own Bat Cave - despite the fact that acquiring one has very frequently been offered as the very first adventure in a campaign. Gygax and Arneson actually allowed the characters to do this sort of thing when they got to about ninth level and started to collect followers and get forts arbitrarily. But even this was very abstract and largely unrelated to the campaign. You might stab everyone in a castle right in the face at 6th or 4th level, and you might be in the midst of an epic treck across the desert when you ding 9th, but you still got to play the stronghold ownership game when you dinged 9th and not at other times. Campaigns back then were very episodic and were assumed to have a lot of downtime - cliffhangers were discouraged.

But the concept here is that the moment you take out the Dark Duke or slay the Dragon or do anything else that should by all rights make you the local Baron, you are the local Baron. And that means that you can then get new goals like "expand your holdings" and "improve infrastructure in the local township" and "encourage immigrants". And you get additional adventures possible like "there's a zombie on your lawn" and "ogres want to eat your sheep" and "the Duke wants you to become part of his kingdom." In short, once the players have a home that is valuable to them, the question of "why don't we just leave instead of dealing with this adventure" has an acceptably coherent answer and your adventure hooks can now include "this place sucks". On the flip side, quests involving travel are now somewhat unfortunate, since the new assumption is that the players will want to go back to the place where they have a secret base.

Nation building is pretty much the same as covering the hierarchy of needs, but for "the people" in the area rather than just one person. So you can have adventures achieving or expanding any of the following:

• Survival Needs
  • Clean Water
  • Food
  • Clothing
  • Shelter
  • Fuel
• Safety Needs
  • Monster Clearance
  • Border Defense
  • Justice
  • Sanitation
• Psychological Needs
  • Education and Training of Children
  • Diplomatic Recognition
  • Surpluses/ Leisure Time
• Self Actualization
  • A National Identity
  • Establishment of Laws and Customs
  • Specialization of Labor
  • Creation of Landmarks and Monuments
• Peak Experience
  • Luxury Goods
  • Schedules of Festivals and Holidays
  • Provisions for Social Advancement

And it's especially important to note that not all of these things can or should be adventures. Some of these issues should be addressed directly by characters using their own abilities.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Re: Easy Mode, Medium Mode, and Hard Mode classes...

I personally don't think that there should be a distinction made between medium and hard mode classes; I really don't think that everyone who plays an artificer will appreciate being nudged into heavy logistics nor will everyone who plays a ranger like being shut out of being the kingpin of the forest economy.

Easy Mode classes, yes, but they should be labeled as such. I think that there should pretty much be two 'easy mode' classes:

Barbarian: Mostly focused on melee, but also force them to have some ranged shenanigans--probably throwing their axe or sword or whatever. I can tell you that for a new player to the game it's VERY frustrating to be locked out of combat due to poor strategy. But people new to the game rarely bring backup weapons or have a backup tactic, which is a huge problem when you're focused on melee like most n00bs. They should AUTOMATICALLY get a competent ranged gimmick that they're not allowed to discard. They can get more if they want.

Mage: Mostly focused on blasting/sniping. They have friendly ranged AoE spells and single-target spells that inflict status effects that the DM is supposed to track. They're designed to be helpful just sitting in a corner and blasting folk; stuff like Stinking Cloud and Visions of Avarice should be rare for them, if they get anything like that at all. Because it's easier to get your blast on than your melee on, they don't really need a backup tactic. But they should still be tethered reasonably close to the party so that they don't get ganked.

The Barbarian and Mage will definitely have a lot of overlap with their counterparts the Warlord and the Wizard. In fact the classes are explicitly set up so that the Warlord and Wizard, when designed properly, are superior to the Barbarian and Mage. Except in combat, where they're equal. It's very important not to make the Barbarian and the Mage better in any respect (especially combat) to the Warlord and Wizard focusing on their areas, because otherwise too many people will pick the classes. There are a whole lot of people out there who would dump all of their skills and non-combat powers for an extra spell slot or point of BAB and we should discourage them.

[Grek]

I disagree with Lago: Easy Mode characters should get actual abilities, but they should be passive effects. The Barbarian should get an ability that says they are watched by spirits and are immune to curses, magical hazards and whatnot. Or they can be immune to disease and poison. Pick one and run with it. They also get Rage, which introduces them to the idea of combat buffs, but their rage automatically triggers as soon as they wound someone or get wounded. The Mage gets a special power that lets them passively see traps, or one that lets them be immune to fire, or whatever.

Further, I don't think the Easy Mode classes should be literally labeled "Easy Mode" Or be seperate classes. They should be a build for a regular class which is written down in the book someplace. Think 2E kits for fighters. And all of the abilities in those kits should be newbie-friendly.

[Username17]

How many easy mode classes there should be should be a factor of how many classes you make total. If you only had 5 classes, having just 1 Easy Mode class would be appropriate. With more than a dozen classes, having more Easy Mode classes is more reasonable. Indeed, it would be nice if you could field an entire party of all easy mode classes that all do things simpler, just as you could do an all hard-mode class party for play groups that want to do that.

Archer, Berserker, Monk, Shaman seems like a pretty reasonable list of playable EZ classes, for example. All of those really appeal to different kinds of players who want to do things EZStyle. Especially the Berserker and the Monk honestly.

The Barbarian and Mage will definitely have a lot of overlap with their counterparts the Warlord and the Wizard. In fact the classes are explicitly set up so that the Warlord and Wizard, when designed properly, are superior to the Barbarian and Mage. Except in combat, where they're equal. It's very important not to make the Barbarian and the Mage better in any respect (especially combat) to the Warlord and Wizard focusing on their areas, because otherwise too many people will pick the classes. There are a whole lot of people out there who would dump all of their skills and non-combat powers for an extra spell slot or point of BAB and we should discourage them.

Agreed. You should never encourage people to trade their dignity for combat bonuses. Because some non-zero portion of the gaming public will do it.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

If you are going to run with whole parties of EZ or Hard I don't see why you wouldn't just have the EZ mode game system and the Hard mode game system separate at that point.

Unless SOMEONE at the table is using Hard Mode, or has some chance of transitioning their EZ mode character into Hard Mode there really isn't any point in having the Hard Mode material there.

[souran]

Agreed. You should never encourage people to trade their dignity for combat bonuses. Because some non-zero portion of the gaming public will do it.

-Username17

Amazingly, you are seriously understating this effect.

MOST players will trade as much out of combat power for as much in combat power as your system allows.

Skills and Powers was a perfect example of this. The vast majority of people I played with and met traded away the level 10 followers that they got (soldiers for fighters, devotees for clerics, apprentices for wizards and rouges) for something that would mechanically make them better at stabbing people in the face.


Which gets to something else. Quite simply, most players have no desire to ever "progress" the game beyond Frank's "Questing Adventures" phase.

Quite of a bit of your player base doesn't want the game to change as drastically as a change from free roving advnetures to manging kindoms.

While there are certianly some players who would "take" a kingdom if offered, if they have to give up any resouce that would make them better at killing dragons they will pass.


The story arc that many many players are looking for goes basically like
levels 1-10: Defeat the evil wizard
level 11-20: Prevent the lich that evil wizard became when we killed him from acending to god hood.
Levels 21-30: Kill the evil god who used the evil liches failed attempt at godhood as a backdoor back into the mortal realm.

I personally enjoy a little nation building, I wouldn't mind my high level warrior getting to lead armies in battle. However, when "battles" are fought in table top rpgs they put most people to sleep unless the battle is "won" by player heroics and NOT as some tacical alternate combat minigame.

Let me just sum up the best way I know, developed after long discussions of this effect with numerous other players.

No rpg player will willing be captain pickard, but every player would be captain kirk.

Pickard is captain, but he doesn't get to DO most of the plot things. He uses his first officer to command away teams, he follows starfleet rules, and therefore he spends a lot of each episode in his readyroom or getting reports from the other characters. This is what real "command" is like and its just not what most people want in their escapist rpg.

Kirk on the other hand, leads all his own away teams, always gets to sleep with the alien, is the one who always gets to be in the phaser or fist fight and violating the prime directive appears to be his primary mission. Kirk being captain is really SECONDARY to what makes him interesting.


Players only want position/rank if it doesn't get in the way of doing what they want with the game.

[Ice9]

Although really, Easy vs Hard doesn't mean combat vs non-combat. It's more like "combat options" vs "combat bonuses".

So an Easy-Mode warrior type just has large enough bonuses "I stab it" is always a level-appropriate option, and enough defenses and mobility that they won't get shut down, usually in the form of automatic abilities.

A Hard-Mode warrior has less straight bonuses, but has a wider variety of attacks and other options that can be combined together to powerful effect. Instead of automatic bonuses to avoid shutdown, he has abilities he can activate to foil/break incoming crap.

The key is that if you make the Easy-Mode bonuses too much weaker than what the Hard-Mode guy gets, then the classes can't really be mixed. But on the other hand, if you make the Easy-Mode bonuses so big that even the best tactics from a Hard-Mode character can barely match them, then some players who would have enjoyed Hard-Mode will take Easy-Mode instead so they can be more effective.


This can apply out of combat as well. The Hard-Mode character gets Leadership resources he can use to get followers, influence, castles, whatever, which he manages to some extent. The Easy-Mode character just gets a big Reputation score he can use to get what he wants when he needs it. And again, the same balancing act applies.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Skills and Powers was a perfect example of this. The vast majority of people I played with and met traded away the level 10 followers that they got (soldiers for fighters, devotees for clerics, apprentices for wizards and rouges) for something that would mechanically make them better at stabbing people in the face.

That's at least partially a different issue: you can trade something that you'll get if you make it to 10th level for something which will make you a better face-stabber right now.

Also, IIRC S&P resulted is clerics setting everything on fire to be able to use limited wish at will at 1st level.

[Sashi]

For a lesser example look at every evaluation of feats, ever. They are evaluated exclusively on "what lets me kill things faster".

[JonSetanta]

As a terminology crossover from the /tg/ forum I nominate That Guy as the catchall term for rude RPG jerkass.

"Hey look who showed up, it's That Guy again."

[norms29]

just my two cents on terminology, a simple google search shows that steve the crap covered peasent/farmer massively out weighs other uses of it. hell, it's used repeatedly in the tomes. I don't see trying to change that now as viable or disireable.

also, I second the motion to refer to to douchebag players as "That Guy"

[Red_Rob]

Agreed. You should never encourage people to trade their dignity for combat bonuses. Because some non-zero portion of the gaming public will do it.

-Username17

I would go so far as to say this is the norm. My group refers to Samurai level 5 (in which you get access to a daily 5th level divination spell) as "the shitty level" because you don't get a power that actively makes you better at stabbing things. Never mind you get access to a 5th level spell 4 levels early, if it doesn't help you kill goblins its pointless...

Also:

This can apply out of combat as well. The Hard-Mode character gets Leadership resources he can use to get followers, influence, castles, whatever, which he manages to some extent. The Easy-Mode character just gets a big Reputation score he can use to get what he wants when he needs it. And again, the same balancing act applies.

I read it more as hard classes having abilities to participate in decision making, whilst easy classes have abilities that mean they can avoid having to think their way through parts of the adventure they don't enjoy if they choose.

[RobbyPants]

Also, IIRC S&P resulted is clerics setting everything on fire to be able to use limited wish at will at 1st level.

Spells and Magic, for sure. They took the S&P rules and expanded them for the cleric and wizard. I remember the wizard getting something like 40 CP (5 per each of the 8 schools), and the cleric getting 120 (to buy all their domains and Turn Undead).

Now, you couldn't buy stuff cross class, so the fact that the cleric got three times the CP didn't matter because of that. The problem was in their crazy liberal system for purchasing spell-like abilities. Yes, you could totally roll a guy with higher-level abilities who only happened to have 1st level HP.