Quote from: Exploderwizard;580357The concept of "throwing" a golem at a 1st level party is pretty funny. It assumes that the party will be moved through scheduled fights on a treadmill with little to say about it.

The concept of "throwing" anything at the PCs is retarded anyway.

Quote from: estar;580555So what the difference between a 10th level fighter and Street samurai who earned and applied a lot of Karma?

Quite a bit.

The Street Sam hasn't increased his damage capacity by a factor of 8 or 10, decreased his ability to be hit be a factor of 6 or so, or increased his ability to save by another large factor.  Those security level 1 or 2 mooks are still able to take him out, yes it's harder for that to happen but it is no where near the amount of goblins or orcs it takes to take down a 10th level fighter.

Quote from: RPGPundit;580491How the hell is this NOT organic?

Because you put them there.

Quote from: estar;580553You are missing the point of what the Pundit and myself are saying. Just because a RPG is level based doesn't mean that the settings made for it automatically have areas that only have Nth level threats. Areas MAY exist that happen to have a similar grouping of N levels but they would be a coincidence because of how the inhabitants stat out in the game.

I'm not saying that it has to be anything based on levels.  I'm just saying that the setup can be broken into three broad categories, "Fair Fight", "Fair Warning", and "Life's Not Fair".   Though as Brendan says, there is middle ground between these.  Also, there can be different setups that can make either "Fair Fight" or "Fair Warning" less intrusive - so the meta-gamey-ness is less obvious.  

Some people have been arguing against fairness, but always bringing up examples about how the players are to blame for their own doom.  If you're actually running a "Life's Not Fair" game, then there are going to be situations where the PCs are just screwed and it's not their fault.  (I play Call of Cthulhu regularly - which is often like this and still fun.)

Quote from: Sommerjon;580592Because you put them there.

To review Sommerjon's contributions to the thread:

(1) It is impossible to stay in-character while playing a roleplaying game.

(2) It is impossible to have an organic campaign world because all campaign worlds are created by GMs.

I strongly urge everyone to keep this insanity in mind when attempting to converse with this guy.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;580615To review Sommerjon's contributions to the thread:

(1) It is impossible to stay in-character while playing a roleplaying game.

(2) It is impossible to have an organic campaign world because all campaign worlds are created by GMs.

I strongly urge everyone to keep this insanity in mind when attempting to converse with this guy.

He's not wrong on either count. I can see people staying in-character as long as no metagame situation comes up (like rolling a die) but since you're playing a game and at some point you have to treat it like that you have to step out of character.

Secondly since no matter how good of a GM you are you can't compete with real life. You can't indeed claim that your game is "organic" (in that things just happen to be where they are through circumstance) since you probably place things according to your own logic which is not as random as real life.

I find no part of what you stated his opinion to be as "insane". He may not jive with what you are wanting to mean but if taken literally he would not be wrong.

Quote from: jibbajibba;580299In a game of traveller where there are no levels and PCs can start with widely varied skill levels you don't get the goblin planet, the ogre planet and the Giant planet. Things are more generically mixed. There is a space port and there are criminal gangs there aren't 1HD criminal gangs and 4 HD criminal gangs.

Not entirely true.

A world's Law Level can be used as a thumbrule to figure out what weapons are available for use and sale, and used against the PCs. A world with a low Law Level wil have more lethal weapons available and in use than a world with a high Law Level. Tech Level may affect what sorts of weapons can be manufactured, but Law Level tells you what is easily available.

So your goblin planet may be low tech and high law level while your ogre planet may have high tech and low law level. Hit Dice can be used to represent the hazard level of the world if need be.

Also, a world is big and much more complex than what I am representing here is a drastic simplification used to explain my point.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;580423Hey! Don't sell American Maid short. She will clean your clock mister.

Then of course, there's Sewer Urchin, who should count as a higher encounter level if fought in his native environment.

JG

Meanwhile, on RPGNet:

Quote from: Plotline PeteThe main thing is while yes there should be risks is the only way to create tension/risk in D&D (and other games in general) only limited to death? One fellow player believe that the risk of death increases verisimilitude (their own words)... my issue is that my players and myself want to create stories and collaborate on where we want to go/ what will happen to these characters in advance.. far advance into the game.

Example: running a game where eventually going into time travel as a theme of the game using different systems as different "ages" one of which involves one of the characters rescuing himself thus setting him on the path of the wizard.

Personally him dieing to some random trash mob wouldn't be justice (again D&D can get around death in various ways) perhaps a major villain or solo monster...

Quote from: Deprotagonised DanDying is one of the most boring consequences that can happen to a character, IMO. It ends that character's story and participation, and you lose all the effort you've put into developing and advancing them, in terms of game mechanics, plot and personality. Threat of death is a very potent motivator in real life, but it's much less effective, and more importantly less interesting, in a game.

Quote from: Strawman SamYes, it's true that my sense of verisimilitude would probably be hurt by my inability to be killed in what should be a lethal fight*. On the other hand, getting killed by housecats, dying fairly consistently from falling ten feet, or, as in one example from another thread, dying when picking a lock because the pick breaks and sends jagged shards into your jugular all are both fairly lethal, and damaging to my sense of verisimilitude.

(Admittedly, there are a bunch of contrary opinions, but the mentality Pundit is drawing attention to is a real thing.)

Quote from: Sommerjon;580586Quite a bit.

The Street Sam hasn't increased his damage capacity by a factor of 8 or 10, decreased his ability to be hit be a factor of 6 or so, or increased his ability to save by another large factor.  Those security level 1 or 2 mooks are still able to take him out, yes it's harder for that to happen but it is no where near the amount of goblins or orcs it takes to take down a 10th level fighter.

None of those are a result of D&D being Class & Level. They are result of what Gygax choose the rate of progression to be. 2nd level is twice as powerful as first level, 3rd level is three times as powerful, and so on. And what you don't mention that there are several mechanics involving Save vs Death where failure (although unlikely) results in instant Death for the character.

You may prefer a game that more realistic in depiction of character capabilities. Commonly expressed as being able to be taken out in one shot. Or the reverse to take out a target in one shot. In my experience this is a common reason for people moving away from D&D. Indeed Runequest was designed by SCA folks who found D&D unrealistic and too abstract.

But none of this has anything to do with what metagame consideration the referee uses in designing a setting.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;580365Totally possible. If the climate and terrain favor those types of monsters then they may be present.

There is a major difference between the presence of something in a given area and throwing the PCs into a thunderdome with it.

True, that's what the rare and very rare parts of random encounter tables are for. Or at least one of the ways I use those slots. And that's because in my settings an apex solitary predator tends to not share space (overlap) so readily, and thus has to cover a large area. A party can come across a very rare green dragon whelp as it traipses on through the ho-hum forest. The whelp is looking after its home but can't be everywhere at once.

And the really cool thing with the reaction table and morale is that encounters with intelligent, big-scary monsters might end up differently. Travelers passing through usually don't warrant full-scale assaults with no quarter -- I mean, how else is my poor whelp going to collect his hoard? Risking his life every time and slaughter all survivors? Pshaw! That's too much work! That's what tricks, traps, functionaries, tribute, and favors are for!

Possibility does not equal likely probability. And encounter does not equal mortal conflict. The game isn't played solely at extremes of the spectrum.

I feel player choice is strengthened because they can choose "dicier" terrain, and their response to encounters. Without a foretold metagame playbook, which way to go and encounter responses becomes meaningful. It helps individualize a party's game. It also walks away from standardization, which might be a problem for RPGA/Living Campaign organized events, but meh, that's a different style of play anyway.

Quote from: jibbajibba;580369They will make an assumption that it is a low level adventure because of its placement regardless of theinformation they receive, unless someone actually says there are 3 ghosts inside, which no one would know.

It's easier than that. Just tell them before the game starts that they should never make those sorts of assumptions. Problem solved.

Don't you explain how you run the game to your players? It takes a minute and avoids all sorts of problematic assumptions.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;580691It's easier than that. Just tell them before the game starts that they should never make those sorts of assumptions. Problem solved.

Don't you explain how you run the game to your players? It takes a minute and avoids all sorts of problematic assumptions.

I would at a con but with my mates no they get what they deserve.
At a Con I would never run a haunted house like this in fact at a con I would never try to run a sandbox way to much can go wrong. I woudl probably look to run a game much more like a set number of encounters - using a standard D&D setting. (I have only ever run Amber at cons although I have played a lot of games. Amber just runs differently so not a great parallel.)  

All I am really saying is that 80%+ of sandbox settings really look like WoW level dependent environments when you dig a little. And running a plot driven game and using roughly X encounters per day as a measure is just as metagamey.

Quote from: estar;580663None of those are a result of D&D being Class & Level. They are result of what Gygax choose the rate of progression to be. 2nd level is twice as powerful as first level, 3rd level is three times as powerful, and so on. And what you don't mention that there are several mechanics involving Save vs Death where failure (although unlikely) results in instant Death for the character.

You may prefer a game that more realistic in depiction of character capabilities. Commonly expressed as being able to be taken out in one shot. Or the reverse to take out a target in one shot. In my experience this is a common reason for people moving away from D&D. Indeed Runequest was designed by SCA folks who found D&D unrealistic and too abstract.

But none of this has anything to do with what metagame consideration the referee uses in designing a setting.

Yes those are a result of D&D being level based.

Quote from: jhkim;580523You can manage risks in your life in general, but the modern-day world is vastly better mapped and cataloged and risk-assessed than the typical fantasy world.  

Not really. I have been in very dangerous environments for extended amounts of time (Not so much in recent years, ...earlier on though). Environments containing Islamic radicals, Lebanese and Druse Christians, Palestinians and Hezbollah members, Egyptian fundamentalists, African separatists, Secular Shia Clerics, As well as third world countries with a plentitude of Drug Dealers, Ex-Cons, and Grifters, and have also lived in crime-ridden, poverty stricken areas for years. Here in the States I was working every day right in the middle of the LA Riots when they broke out in 1992.  Even in the dangerous areas the risks were considerably less than one would first guess, and could be considerably reduced by exercising an increased immediate awareness of everything happening within a close proximity. Ones senses and habits literally change to accomodate the environment.

Living in the relatively crime free Rural Midwest is not safer by any significant margin. In fact its probably less safe statistically speaking, as the same skills of awareness that were practiced daily when I worked and lived in the Far East, in the Middle East, in LA, Boston, and Miami are not perceived to be needed (and therefore not used) for the cornfields and cows around here. Nonetheless, there's probably more stray bullets zinging around from hunters. More driving collisions, More disagreements that can get out of control with much less immediate help available.

The problem here is the sporadic nature of these risky events. Tends to lull the survival senses some making for larger variances in risk assessment accuracy.

Case in point, the guy that got decapitated here in 2008 by driving high-speed into a Combine. Now the farmers and the combines, they are normally on the fields, plowing furrows or clearing rows of crops. On that particular day, the guy driving by, never guessed the farmer/combine driver would be crossing the road right in front of him. Instead of turning to do another row, the combine just kept on going and popped out onto the road at an odd angle. The guy that was formerly just driving by unexpectedly found himself plowing into the combine with his car at right around 60 miles per hour and hit the front forks at just that right angle.

Another real killer in the "safe" midwest. The sleepy tractor-trailer driver that has 22 tons of goods barreling along with him on the Interstate at 70 MPH. In this particular case, the driver ended up injuring no one but himself, however it was fatal as well when he fell asleep at the wheel and his rig ended up tumbling down a hillside where there was a small curve in the road. The crash ignited the diesel (he had just filled up about an hour prior to the crash) and everything that survived the crash burned.

Kids, drag racing on the backroads. I have five known fatalities in the last decade here. In one case two kids drove into a lake late at night doing 70 MPH. Only one made it out of the car. In another incident, the dragsters collided then tumbled killing both drivers. One of those cars slammed into some indigent drifter that was just walking on the side of the road killing him instantly as well. By the skidmarks they were clocked doing at 125 MpH.

Takes a few actual incidents like this before your danger senses adjust to properly accomodate the new potential threat(s).