The Five Cornerstones to Adventuring

K · Post by K » Fri May 16, 2008 10:13 pm

The life of an adventurer is a wild and woolly place. One day you are fighting dragons from the side of mountain crevasses and delving into mostly extinct volcanoes to kill a barrow of flaming wights, and the next day you are sipping sherbet with the duke and doing your best to avoid the love triangle between his daughter and the wizard adviser.

After some thought, there are things every adventurer needs to be able to do to qualify as a minimally competent adventurer.

1. Fight Monsters.
A character has to be able to solo things and fight things as a team. Nuff' said.

2. Talk.
Whether it is witty reparte with liches or doing an inspiring speech to rouse the villagers to take up arms, every real adventurer needs some ability to talk and persuade.

3. Handle Magic Items/Effects.
Magic is everywhere in the fantasy universe, so every adventurer needs some ability to identify, understand, and use weird magics. Fighters may need to cut through magic walls with their equally magic swords while wizards are casting counter-magics, but both need to look at a castle made out of ice and say "meh, its a powerful magic at work here...."

4. Not Die.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of statistics knows that a small probability of dying means you'll die eventually (and probably ignobly). For this reason, DnD uses Raise Dead, action points, and weird things like contingent effects to keep heroes and villains alive. Whether it is access to a good cleric or clones in your basement, every adventurer needs a way to avoid dying.

5. Information
Knowledge wins quests, so in many ways you need some sort of information gathering to accomplish anything. This can run the range from friendly sages to quest-granting angels to street rats with gossip, but figuring out what is going on is essential.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri May 16, 2008 11:26 pm

1) That was really outta the blue - may I ask why?
2) Do people really need 5 built in? I mean, every adventurer can bank on reputation and/or crude intimidation to some extent, it's assumed that while a game goes, a contact list will form either way, and presumably a character with 2 has some kind of defense against lies, so they can go around asking people, and find people willing to talk without it being much of a special consideration (I suppose).

K · Post by K » Sat May 17, 2008 12:59 am

Bigode wrote:1) That was really outta the blue - may I ask why?
2) Do people really need 5 built in? I mean, every adventurer can bank on reputation and/or crude intimidation to some extent, it's assumed that while a game goes, a contact list will form either way, and presumably a character with 2 has some kind of defense against lies, so they can go around asking people, and find people willing to talk without it being much of a special consideration (I suppose).

1. I've been thinking of new edition ideas, so I wanted to see if anyone disagreed on certain essential points.

2. I've been thinking of a "separate but equal" system to hit all five corners for every class.

So let's look at information:

Fighter: He's a man of the people. Kings invite him to their table and peasants walk miles to tell him of dangers that need to be put down. Even in a foreign land, warriors and generals of all kinds respect him as a fellow in arms.

Cleric: The Outer Planes watch his steps, so angels and other powerful outsiders respond to his calls and are willing to impart their advice.

Wizard/Sorcerer: Scrying magic is the penchant of the mage, so while some heroes must entreat others for information the mage casts spells that directly point him to the information he needs.

Rogue: Through a network of contacts bought with favors and bribes, the rogue makes friends wherever he goes.

--------------------------------

The idea is not only that people always have something to do for all aspects of the game, but that some people will shine as needed. For example, a criminal overlord working in conjunction with the Temple of Bhaal might have protections from magic scrying and divine interference, but the King has some knowledge and the by checking the criminal underworld you can find the rest.

It also means that if your party can generally be mixed and no class or the other is "essential". To follow our previous example, if the party is two Sorcerers and Cleric, then the DM can spot remove the divine or arcane protection and the adventure can go on without a Rogue.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat May 17, 2008 1:46 am

You missed at least one major point, possibly two.

Navigate
You need to be able to travel and explore small and large areas, get past numerous strange obstacles with zany acrobatics or cool spells and sometimes do so quickly.

You also need to be able to manipulate the grounds on which encounters occur by sneaking, running away or chasing.

Create
Players will sometimes want to contribute to the game world by means greater than their own actions. They want to create stuff, or maybe places or even creatures. So you probably want options out there to train or make npcs, create items, make buildings, be the boss of stuff, whatever. But this is perhaps a lesser point.

Also I think the handle magic effects/etc... is less a point in itself as a guideline that needs to be covered in each and every point.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:12 am

You are missing Get Rich, Sex With Exotic Beings, and Influence Setting.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat May 17, 2008 4:51 am

Keith, I think that's a great way of doing things. Even if abilities aren't explicitly divided up into categories, making sure that every character has his own set of appropriately tailored outcome-influencing abilities would go a long way towards inter-class balance and fulfilling game play.

1, 2, and 5 are true in just about any RPG. 3 and 4 are more D&D-specific and open to interpretation. Certainly there's room for the guy who dies a lot and always manages to come back, or the guy who doesn't use magic per se but knows what it is and how to interact with it.

Navigate is again open to interpretation; a basement-dwelling wizard who makes heavy use of scrying, telepathy, foci, and the occasional projected image could actually be a fun player character as well as villain.

Jacob_Orlove · Post by **Jacob_Orlove** » Sat May 17, 2008 6:00 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Navigate
You need to be able to travel and explore small and large areas, get past numerous strange obstacles with zany acrobatics or cool spells and sometimes do so quickly.

You also need to be able to manipulate the grounds on which encounters occur by sneaking, running away or chasing.

While I agree 100% that characters need comparable local maneuverability, it doesn't really hurt the narrative if everyone has to jump on a plane (or a boat or whatever) to get to the next adventure. If you're Odysseus, the boat ride can actually be the entire campaign.

The real danger is giving some characters more mobility than others. It doesn't really matter where you set the bar, just that everyone is at the same level. Which is true of all of these, really.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat May 17, 2008 8:05 am

I agree that who if anyone in the party solves longer distance manoeuvrability and out of combat obstacles is not that big a deal.

But I felt it lumped in with the more immediate hide and chase/encounter manipulation sort of stuff that you do kind of need.

Also there is a strong focus on giving out abilities for long distance travel and thwarting obstacles in D&D, just look at the spell lists, so I figured hey, maybe everyone wants in on that action.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 17, 2008 11:03 am

Do people really need 5 built in? I mean, every adventurer can bank on reputation and/or crude intimidation to some extent, it's assumed that while a game goes, a contact list will form either way, and presumably a character with 2 has some kind of defense against lies, so they can go around asking people, and find people willing to talk without it being much of a special consideration (I suppose).

This is an important point: the ability to go around asking people and have a contact list is an inherent ability of a character. Regardless of whether you accomplish a goal by having NPCs come up and help you or spitting on the ground and affecting change by magic, the fact is that anything that your character can expect to be able to accomplish is a facet of the character. Owning a corporation or summoning monsters is not actually different provided that both cause you to be able to get goons in on short notice. From the standpoint of the narrators (the players), the reason that someone can expect to accomplish a task is just a black box. Socially derived abilities are no worse and no different from abilities granted by "training" or "magic" or "alien superscience."

3. Handle Magic Items/Effects.

I would say that this is not so much a check box as part of a larger check that everything has to be checked against in all games. Everything you do has to be doable within the game system you are running in. Your abilities have to matter against the challenges you are actually going to face.

In most fantasy games, Magic permeates everything. Enemy fortresses are hidden by magic, protected by magic, and manned by magical stuff. Everything you do in such a situation has to be meaningful if the thing on the other end of the DM Screen uses magic, because fucing everything uses magic. In a Doc Savage / Shadow / Zorro type situation, real magic is fairly uncommon and it basically always wins. In that kind of campaign you seriously don't need (or even particularly want) players to be able to do anything to magic. But they do need to be able to do something about enemies with guns and hot air balloons.

So there should probably be some over checks:

Everything You Do Needs to Matter Where You Are. Knowledge of microchips does jack in a bronze age setting, non-magical lockpicking does crap all when enemies lock their door with spells. Intrusion skills need to handle motion detectors and laser arrays in a modern setting, divinations and warding sigils in a fantasy setting, squeaky floors and angry dogs in a feudal Nippon setting, and so on and so forth. Everything you do has to be applicable to the setting you will actually find yourself in.

And yeah, other than that, you need to be able to fight, talk, live, and advance the plot. But you need to be able to do it in the setting the game takes place in.

-Username17

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sun May 18, 2008 2:59 am

Given that we're talking D&D/TNE I think K (+PL) about covered it.

I do think its important not to get too picky about who does what out of combat. I don't really want to see the wizard unable to talk instead of scry.

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Sun May 18, 2008 3:10 am

Frank wrote:This is an important point: the ability to go around asking people and have a contact list is an inherent ability of a character. Regardless of whether you accomplish a goal by having NPCs come up and help you or spitting on the ground and affecting change by magic, the fact is that anything that your character can expect to be able to accomplish is a facet of the character. Owning a corporation or summoning monsters is not actually different provided that both cause you to be able to get goons in on short notice. From the standpoint of the narrators (the players), the reason that someone can expect to accomplish a task is just a black box. Socially derived abilities are no worse and no different from abilities granted by "training" or "magic" or "alien superscience."

The "problem": I put it that all adventurers will be equally able to cash in favors, and hooks are by default able to jump all PCs. OTOH, stuff like scrying's actual recon, and should be compared against stealth and ... something, for warriors (nothing better than "tactical intuition" comes to mind, and I know that's rather crappy).

Talisman · Post by **Talisman** » Sun May 18, 2008 4:29 am

I would argue that, while all adventurers need at least basic competence in these Big 5, not all adventurers need to be good at all of these.

1: Combat - D&D is a combat-centric system, and you absolutely have to be able to help in combat. You don't, however, have to be a rock star. If I'm building a diplomat (who knows how to swing a sword), and Joe over there is building a weapon master, Joe had damn well be a better fighter than me! Others may disagree, but I don't believe a character is useless in combat as long as he contributes in some way - grant a bonus, deny an enemy their action, whatever.

2: Talk - By the same token, my diplomat should be flat-out better at talking to people and creatures than Joe's weapon master. Also, since D&D is a group game, it can be fun to play the socially inept character - the bewildered barbarian, the nerdy wizard, etc - without screwing the party. Monsters don't play favorites; they try to eat everyone. You rarely talk to five separate people at once, though, meaning a single, lone diplomat is more effective (in diplomacy) than a single, lone warrior (in combat).

3: Handle Magic - D&D characters certainly have to be able to deal with magic - avoid it, survive it, bypass it, or smash it. This doesn't mean they need the ability to wield magic themselves, or to understand how magic works. I have only a basic comprehension of how an engine is made; despite this, I can get along in a car-filled world, and (given a sledgehammer and enough time) utterly destroy a car.

4: Not Die - Well, duh. However, the threat of death has to be present, or else we lose that dramatic tension.

5: Information - Much like #2, it can be fun (or at least possible) to play a character with no contacts or real interest in gathering information. Some characters simply don't cultivate contacts or attract devoted followers! As with the warrior/diplomat dynamic, the informationally-impaired can generally rely upon their smarter brethren to carry them though.

All this is, of course, assuming a standard group RPG of, say, 3-6 players.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Sun May 18, 2008 7:44 am

It seems like No. 5 (Information) is being treated exclusively as a social function. This is strange, given a baseline game (D&D) that assumes the existence of scrying and commune spells. Even on the non-magical end, knowledge skills give you information that can be relevant to the adventure, too.

It's quite possible to have an introverted wizard with no interest in making contacts; he gets his information from the local archives.

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 5:19 pm

OgreBattle's thread got me thinking about this. One cornerstone seems to be missing:

An adventurer must be able to get to the adventure to adventure at all.

This is basically the fundamental point at which mundanes fail at life (i.e. adventuring). Two examples: So you're a fighter or barbarian. Rescue the princess from the cloud giant's castle? No, you can't get there. Looting a sunk city inhabited by sahuagin? No, you'd drown before even getting down there. Thus, it's absolutely mandatory to be able to overcome these obstacles as an adventurer or NPCs will just hire a wizard.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 5:56 pm

I made this other thread because I had long forgotten about this thread here.

K · Post by K » Mon Dec 16, 2013 6:41 pm

zugschef wrote:OgreBattle's thread got me thinking about this. One cornerstone seems to be missing:
An adventurer must be able to get to the adventure to adventure at all.
This is basically the fundamental point at which mundanes fail at life (i.e. adventuring). Two examples: So you're a fighter or barbarian. Rescue the princess from the cloud giant's castle? No, you can't get there. Looting a sunk city inhabited by sahuagin? No, you'd drown before even getting down there. Thus, it's absolutely mandatory to be able to overcome these obstacles as an adventurer or NPCs will just hire a wizard.

I'd agree with that point.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 7:12 pm

zugschef wrote:OgreBattle's thread got me thinking about this. One cornerstone seems to be missing:
An adventurer must be able to get to the adventure to adventure at all.
This is basically the fundamental point at which mundanes fail at life (i.e. adventuring). Two examples: So you're a fighter or barbarian. Rescue the princess from the cloud giant's castle? No, you can't get there. Looting a sunk city inhabited by sahuagin? No, you'd drown before even getting down there. Thus, it's absolutely mandatory to be able to overcome these obstacles as an adventurer or NPCs will just hire a wizard.

I don't entirely agree with this. It is perfectly fine for example to have the fighter or barbarian ride a horse to get to the adventure location, but the instant they have to ride a griffon, it's a problem?

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 7:24 pm

If you don't have the ability to get to the adventure, won't the DM just account for that and just hand you a stargate or something?

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 7:34 pm

ishy wrote:If you don't have the ability to get to the adventure, won't the DM just account for that and just hand you a stargate or something?

That depends on railroad vs. sandbox to some extent. If the DM just bought Expedition To The Lava Caverns you can bet you'll all get rings of Fire Resistance handed out by the Mysterious Old Quest Giver. On the other hand in a sandbox setting there might be places you'd like to get to that your current ability set doesn't allow for.

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 7:53 pm

Previn wrote:I don't entirely agree with this. It is perfectly fine for example to have the fighter or barbarian ride a horse to get to the adventure location, but the instant they have to ride a griffon, it's a problem?

Of course it is; at least in DnD. Why hire someone who can't do shit on his own, when you could just hire the one who can?

ishy wrote:If you don't have the ability to get to the adventure, won't the DM just account for that and just hand you a stargate or something?

I might be mistaken, but that sounds like a variant of the Oberoni Fallacy.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 9:13 pm

Previn wrote:
zugschef wrote:OgreBattle's thread got me thinking about this. One cornerstone seems to be missing:
An adventurer must be able to get to the adventure to adventure at all.
This is basically the fundamental point at which mundanes fail at life (i.e. adventuring). Two examples: So you're a fighter or barbarian. Rescue the princess from the cloud giant's castle? No, you can't get there. Looting a sunk city inhabited by sahuagin? No, you'd drown before even getting down there. Thus, it's absolutely mandatory to be able to overcome these obstacles as an adventurer or NPCs will just hire a wizard.
I don't entirely agree with this. It is perfectly fine for example to have the fighter or barbarian ride a horse to get to the adventure location, but the instant they have to ride a griffon, it's a problem?

I'm pretty sure fighters and barbarians can actually go more places than horses can, because they are smaller and bipedal. That isn't to say horses aren't useful, but they don't actually unlock any new locations. If you did for some reason need a horse to go to a certain location that characters of your level were expected to adventure in and you did not have reliable access to a horse, then... yes. That would be a problem. If you are supposed to be able to do X, and need Y to do X, and can't get Y, then you have a problem. That's pretty much definitional at that point.

I think the source of your confusion is that you can't imagine a DM telling the fighter he can't have a horse, and so everyone who needs it implicitly has the "get a horse" ability on their character sheet. But if you don't have "get a griffon" written on your character sheet, your DM is very likely to tell you no or make you jump through a bunch of hoops and then take away your griffon whenever he wants. The only way for you to go on adventures which require griffons is with the DM dropping artifact swords griffons in your lap.

Alternatively, you're very confused and think that the dragontamer doesn't have flight because he can only fly by riding the dragon his class features give him.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 9:38 pm

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, abilities that a character can invoke through social actions are just as much abilities of the character as those which can be invoked through magical actions or raw brute force. The intermediary is as much a special effect as anything. If you can get something done "because you own a big robot" or "because you are the master of a thieve's guild" or "because your pokemon knows Fly" that is essentially the same as being able to get it done "because you cast a spell."

But of course, this is the beginning of the sleight of hand that people have used for justifying shitty Fighters for forty years. Just because an abstract Fighter could fulfill the minimum requirement of "getting to the adventure" in the cloud castle by having a griffon mount or magical winged sandals doesn't mean any particular Fighter will have either of those things. If the Fighter lacks any particular means of acquiring friends or items that would allow them to get to the adventure, the fact that DM pity could have given you those things at some point in the past does you a fuck lot of good when the adventure is now and you can't fucking go.

It's basically the three card monte justification of shitty characters. Items and allies could cover any weaknesses any character could conceivably have. And this is used to excuse every weakness of every class. Which it doesn't really do. Because at least two times out of three you don't actually get the queen.

-Username17

zugschef · Post by **zugschef** » Mon Dec 16, 2013 10:07 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:But of course, this is the beginning of the sleight of hand that people have used for justifying shitty Fighters for forty years.

Exactly. It's like saying that Fighters are on the same power level with wizards, because the DM can drop an artifact sword and an artifact heavy armor. But that discussion has gone through several times per year on the Den (thank you, Lord Mistborn).

Suffice to say, a game needs to provide non-DM-fiat-dependent means for all the PCs to actually engage in an adventure. Since the key-term is "all of them" it should be a mechanic available to every character; something like a ritual, for example.

infected slut princess · Mon Dec 16, 2013 11:13 pm

No one has mentioned to most important cornerstone of adventuring: Macking Bitches.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Tue Dec 17, 2013 12:39 am

FrankTrollman wrote:But of course, this is the beginning of the sleight of hand that people have used for justifying shitty Fighters for forty years. Just because an abstract Fighter could fulfill the minimum requirement of "getting to the adventure" in the cloud castle by having a griffon mount or magical winged sandals doesn't mean any particular Fighter will have either of those things.

Doesn't that just that turn around into: 'Just because a Wizard could have fly, or polymorph, or a charmed a griffon, doesn't mean any particular Wizard will have those things.'

Am I misunderstanding this?