TheRPGSite

Quote from: Arohtar;806732Also the killing will bring the wizard experience points. The nerdy wizards choosing to 'research spells' will actually get nowhere. In the D&D game I know, researching spells will not bring you experience. It is a much better plan to KILL. Kill to get experience and rob to get gold. Both activities will further your research very much.

So you're trying to adhere to some sort of realism, yet think the characters would understand they're actually in a game and thus comprehend metagame concepts? Okay. If that's the case, a wizard would just teleport to the king's treasure room, steal all the gold, then level up 50 times. Why bother with all the lameass fireballing?

QuoteIf the spectres are smart enough about to know about the high level clerics, they will probably also be smart enough to multiply a lot before ambushing the cleric. With hordes of peasants turned into spectres, the spectre horde should be able to send a nightly assassination squad every night for months. And remember that even a touch from a spectre will drain the cleric of two levels. Also the cleric will need to survive on 'create food and water' because all peasants have become spectres. He will be a lonely man in a world of spectres, and before long he will be a spectre himself. According to my Master DM's Book the spectre has an intelligence of 8. They are not geniuses, but 8 should be enough to devise a brutal and efficient plan to assassinate a few clerics.

No, you already said characters know they're in a game, so the king will let his paladin buddy kill a lowly rat to "win" millions of gold pieces worth of treasure. A 36th level paladin can destroy as many spectres as he wants without even trying, so he can just walk around ridding the world of all the undead. Good luck trying to assassinate a paladin who has permanent Protection from Evil! He can sleep in the crypt, immune to the touch of undead, until he's ready to wake up and start destroying in the morning. So now no more undead exist! Hooray paladin!

Quote from: Brad;806744No, you already said characters know they're in a game, so the king will let his paladin buddy kill a lowly rat to "win" millions of gold pieces worth of treasure. A 36th level paladin can destroy as many spectres as he wants without even trying, so he can just walk around ridding the world of all the undead. Good luck trying to assassinate a paladin who has permanent Protection from Evil! He can sleep in the crypt, immune to the touch of undead, until he's ready to wake up and start destroying in the morning. So now no more undead exist! Hooray paladin!

But how does the Paladin protect the king 24 by 7 or does he come back from his Spectre slaying exploits to find the kingdom populated by the undead and the King a "shadow" of his former self.....

Quote from: jibbajibba;806746But how does the Paladin protect the king 24 by 7 or does he come back from his Spectre slaying exploits to find the kingdom populated by the undead and the King a "shadow" of his former self.....

The king obviously just has a cleric cast a permanent protection from evil spell on his castle. Duhh.

Quote from: jibbajibba;806737Without a doubt D&D takes a faux medieval setting with far better sanitation, racial equality and sexual emancipation and grafts on a lot of fantastical magical stuff with absolutely zero thought as to the impact of all these things on the setting.

Exactly.

Quote from: jibbajibba;806737As for Spectres.... High level Clerics are rarer than rocking horse shit by RAW. If a spectre hit a town they could create 500 + spectres in one night easily..... you would need a lot of high level clerics in fact you would need an order of high level clerics fighting a dedicated war against the undead hordes just to maintain equilibrium. The setting would basically become The Walking Dead except the dead  would be able to fly and 30+ miles per hour were incorporeal, only harmed by magic weapons or divine favour (turning) and a single touch would turn an ordinary Joe into a Spectre.

Oh man, that was really funny (partly because I think it is true). I will look for The Walking Dead some time. It sounds like a film, but I have not seen it.

Quote from: Brad;806748The king obviously just has a cleric cast a permanent protection from evil spell on his castle. Duhh.

Didn't know you could cast it on something so huge or that clerics had permanency in BECMI but fair enough... so your setting becomes one in which the players take on the role of recently deceased spectres who's one task it is to try and infiltrate the king's castle and defeat his last few knights.... like it interesting.

OP - Check out some of the creative OSR offerings like Adventurer, Conquerer King System (ACKS), or Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), Spears of the Dawn, Arrows of Indra, Stars Without Number, Lamentations of the Flame Princess...

Also, I think D&D5e is done really well. If you like the basic approach of D&D, then 5e has some nice additions.

You can pick and choose elements you appreciate and ditch the ones you don't and still have a great game.

I wouldn't be so concerned about the inconsistencies. Instead, I would spend my energy inventing my own setting, picking the stuff I like out of the offerings, and presenting it in a manner I can appreciate.

Creating is a fun activity. These "inconsistencies" commonly inspire that bug in the budding DM. It's almost like the creators were daring us to come up with our own stuff...  :-)

For example, I would be very curious about how you might a) reinvent Specters or b) adapt a setting to keep the Specters in check.

Quote from: Brad;806744So you're trying to adhere to some sort of realism, yet think the characters would understand they're actually in a game and thus comprehend metagame concepts? Okay. If that's the case, a wizard would just teleport to the king's treasure room, steal all the gold, then level up 50 times. Why bother with all the lameass fireballing?

Yes, I would like to be able to adhere to some sort of realism. The characters should not know they are in a game, the players of course do, but I think the players should be able to control their characters only using the game world reality as motivation (not drawing on outside information like "I think the DM wants us to go this way" or "We are not supposed to be disobedient to the king").

Teleporting to a treasure room is a great idea. If I played a wizard, I would look for possibilities like that, and I would want my players to do it to (if I was the DM). For me a large part of the fun of the game is to make plans and strategies when fighting the monsters. If that is not possible due to lack of realism, I loose interest. You can call me a wargamer then.

Teleporting to the tresure room does not exclude fireballing. If you want to steal, teleport. If you want to kill, throw fireballs.

Quote from: Brad;806744No, you already said characters know they're in a game, so the king will let his paladin buddy kill a lowly rat to "win" millions of gold pieces worth of treasure. A 36th level paladin can destroy as many spectres as he wants without even trying, so he can just walk around ridding the world of all the undead. Good luck trying to assassinate a paladin who has permanent Protection from Evil! He can sleep in the crypt, immune to the touch of undead, until he's ready to wake up and start destroying in the morning. So now no more undead exist! Hooray paladin!

I did not say characters know they are in a game (if I did, it was a mistake), but it would definitely be a nasty situation if characters were able to generate xp for themselves. I do not see it as a problem for NPC's though, since I do not think they would know this.

And yes, you have just invented another possible inconsistency. With such powerful paladins, why do undead monsters exist?

Look in spell books of wizards. They contain nothing but fire balls, magic missiles, disintegration, meteor swarms, paralysis, cloudkill, death spell, invisible stalker and so on. Why do wizards research such spells if not to use them? Wizards are walking (or flying) missile launchers and flame throwers. Terminators. Don't tell me these people are peaceful researchers.

Quote from: Arohtar;806762And yes, you have just invented another possible inconsistency. With such powerful paladins, why do undead monsters exist?

The same reason Joker is sent to Arkham instead of the electric chair: to give Batman something to do. That's the meta-reason. In Batman's world, the real reason would be due to some complex system of laws that make no sense to us, but are perfectly understood by Batman.

Why are you assuming the D&D world operates with exactly the same rules of logic as our world? Obviously it doesn't because wizards can cast fireballs and disintegrate crap, yet they don't for whatever reason. In meta-terms, it's because that'd be boring.

Quote from: jibbajibba;806755Didn't know you could cast it on something so huge or that clerics had permanency in BECMI but fair enough... so your setting becomes one in which the players take on the role of recently deceased spectres who's one task it is to try and infiltrate the king's castle and defeat his last few knights.... like it interesting.

Isn't this basically the Siege of Gondor..?

Quote from: Arohtar;806726I did not know. Can you supply a reference to "1) the Eagles weren't willing to do that"?

Its in Tolkien's Letters. I'm not at home with access to my books so I cant provide the page/letter #, but I'm sure if you google it, someone online has done so.

Quote from: TristramEvans;806642Here's the characters from the cartoon talking with Elminster in a comicbook providing a primer to the Forgotten Realms ("The Grand Tour"). Presto tries out to be Elminster's apprentice.

Nice try. Both were not official.

Characters have though officially appeared in Karameikos and later Greyhawk in actual product. The Realm was one of the early names for Karameikos/Mystarra.

That others keep stupidly trying to drop it into the Forgotten Realms is their own failing.

Back on topic. BX also features aliens and a space empire where magic is unknown. Pitty they never fleshed that part out.

Quote from: Bren;806694Amateur RPG publications produced, once upon a time, on a mimeograph machine.

To expand on this for Tuypo's benefit, APAs came out of science-fiction fandom in the 1930s.  What these were, in effect, were collections of blogs, with people often taking space to comment on one another's submissions.  You'd type up however many pages of stuff you wanted on a mimeograph sheet, you'd send it in (along with a check to cover the costs) to someone who printed and collated the things, and would mail them out.  They'd come out once a month, for the most part.

The biggest one in the RPG field was Alarums & Excursions, which was actually the first dedicated RPG publication ever, and a great honking lot of pros and future pros contributed, back in the day; I was an active contributor in the late 70s and early 80s, contemporaneously with guys like Dave Hargrave, Ed Simbalist, Greg Stafford and the like.  It's still being published today, even if the Internet's put paid to the model.

Quote from: trechriron;806759OP - Check out some of the creative OSR offerings like Adventurer, Conquerer King System (ACKS), or Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), Spears of the Dawn, Arrows of Indra, Stars Without Number, Lamentations of the Flame Princess...

Also, I think D&D5e is done really well. If you like the basic approach of D&D, then 5e has some nice additions.

You can pick and choose elements you appreciate and ditch the ones you don't and still have a great game.

I wouldn't be so concerned about the inconsistencies. Instead, I would spend my energy inventing my own setting, picking the stuff I like out of the offerings, and presenting it in a manner I can appreciate.

Creating is a fun activity. These "inconsistencies" commonly inspire that bug in the budding DM. It's almost like the creators were daring us to come up with our own stuff...  :-)

For example, I would be very curious about how you might a) reinvent Specters or b) adapt a setting to keep the Specters in check.

Thanks. I will probably take a look at 5th edition D&D. Last time I looked, we were at edition 3, and I could see that many additions had been made to balance the spells.

I love D&D, so somehow it hurts to reinvent or change anything. That is the problem. But I think the authors must have forgotten to write some details about the spectre for example (or my logic will break down), and adding those missing limitations should be all right I guess.

Yeah, let's try to fix the spectre. Here are some thoughts (not thought through, I am just going to write). The threat of spectres invading our lands in kind of cool. Who does no love the idea of Nazgûl entering Bree and chasing the hobbitts through the wilderness? So I would prefer to avoid making the spectres' location fixed. The threat of them multiplying might also be interesting, so maybe that should be kept too. I think to a lesser degree though.

I think I would take away their flying ability. We can let them float along the ground at normal walking speed such that peasants can outrun them. If they can get hold of a horse (not able to escape from a stable for example), maybe they can drive it mad with fear and ride it till it drops (if they are in a hurry). During the day they must hide from the sun or (some rule killing them slowly if exposed to sunlight). When they are closing in on someone, the victim will feel a fear gripping his heart. This fear has a range of two miles. If someone is sleeping, she will have nightmares and possibly wake. Nature reacts on spectres moving through it with darker weather, chill winds, rustling leaves and fleeing animals. This also happens on a two mile radius. Hence a hunter would notice something was wrong if spectres were travelling is his direction. As the front of the area of fear passed him, mice would be running through the leaves, trees would rustle their branches in protest, and a chill and dark wind would seem to emerge from the forest. Just as the front passed, a cold hand of fear would grip the heart of the forester, and he would have to make a saving throw vs. death ray or piss his pants and another saving throw or shit his pants. If the spectres are not moving (travelling), nature will calm down, and people will be able to close in on them without noticing them. Animals like horses with sharper senses might react though, and the area around the spectre lair will generally become deserted (of course bats, rats, dark birds and wolves are not afraid).

Usually spectres prefer to stay in their lair where they enjoy the scary athmosphere in their home, sleeping, howling with their thin voices and playing dice, but sometimes, at full moon or some other occation, the spectres go on a rampage. They wake from their sleep and open their pointy, white eyes. The shine of their eyes become brighter, and inside their skulls big red letters spell KILL! (Often this happens at the same time as other dead bodies (or event the half dead bodies of old people) come to life as zombies with undead brains craving for BRAIN).
The spectres exit their lair, stumbling through nature, and if they can catch a warm blooded animal, they scare it half to death, rip it apart and roll their bodies in the carcass, bathing in the blood.

The energy drain does not work by touch. The spectre needs to obtain a grip of the victims throat from the front, and then it needs to look the victim in the face for three rounds, hissing and scaring the victim, pulling life force from it. After the three rounds the first level drain will occur (only one level), after three more rounds in the grip, another level drain will occur. After this the victim will be drained no more, and the spectres will leave him (if still alive). The victim will be in a coma for 1d4 days and then wake up, maybe with a disturbing mental link to the spectre. The blood drenched, rampaging spectres usually subdue their victims by beating them with sticks, fists and kicks before either ripping them apart or energy draining them.

The spectres' bodies are ghostly and half transparent, but they are solid (and cold to the touch). As mentioned the spectres can't fly, but they make no noise when moving, and they are good at climbing. Spectres need to wear some clothes or cloaks when travelling, or they will catch a cold, but in some situations a spectre might want to be naked (to exploit its half transparency for stealth for example). Spectres take half damage from normal weapons. Their bodies disintegrate when they are slain.

Spectres often go for a walk when not rampaging, but when not angry, they are afraid of life. Laughter and ordinary women and children make them afraid, sad and angry, and when not on the rampage, every time their half circle of fear (moving two miles ahead in front of them) crosses a human, they need to make a saving throw vs. death ray or loose 1 hp. Hence they prefer to walk in deserted wilderness areas. Loosing hp to a lonely hunter (for example) can make them angry though, and they might choose to look for the culprit that made them suffer and drain him of his life force.

If they feel they need to multiply, spectres will kindnap a human and energy drain it in their lair. The human needs to be held for 3d6 days before being ready for the ritual. The ritual involves the human being energy drained and emptied of blood, and the next night, it will rise as a spectre. The preparation of the ritual makes nature react with bad weather, often lightning and thunder. This happens 2d4 days before the ritual is ready.

Spectres in permanent rampage mode have been known to attack human settlements, attempting to create a big ritual to transform the whole population at once.

Well, that must be enough for now. Just some thoughts. Your question made me want to try to find an answer. I do not know if I like it. Maybe loosing the uncorporeality is too much of a change, but how can an uncorporeal monster punch you in the face? Other ideas are welcome.

Quote from: Brad;806763The same reason Joker is sent to Arkham instead of the electric chair: to give Batman something to do. That's the meta-reason. In Batman's world, the real reason would be due to some complex system of laws that make no sense to us, but are perfectly understood by Batman.

Why are you assuming the D&D world operates with exactly the same rules of logic as our world? Obviously it doesn't because wizards can cast fireballs and disintegrate crap, yet they don't for whatever reason. In meta-terms, it's because that'd be boring.

I do not want to assume the same rules of nature as in our world. I would like to assume a different set of rules, just internally consistent.

Quote from: Omega;806783Nice try. Both were not official.

They were both officially licensed products, yes. Basically you're saying you don't want to consider them cannon, there's no kind of officiating ruling on the matter.

Either way, they exactly prove my original statement, which has nothing to do with any fan's notion of "cannon".

I don't understand why earth isn't solely inhabited by alpha predators, it's wildly unrealistic...

Quote from: Planet Algol;806801I don't understand why earth isn't solely inhabited by alpha predators, it's wildly unrealistic...

Yes, you have a point, but if we had a real alpha like the spectre, maybe it would, and a beta predator (us humans) is also to good approximation the sole inhabitant here. But yes, distance and such can explain something.

actually, maybe there is a good parallel here. The largest civilization on earth is of ants. Buta human can easily kill an ant. So the questionis why don't humans just wipe out all the ants?

The answer is of course because humans have other things to do with their time. They have other motivations. They're not cartoon villains who just want to spend all day everyday killing ants just because they can. Ultimately, it wouldn't benefit us in any meaningful way. We have our own goals, our own civilizations and ant colonies are largely meaningless to us.

The same equally applies to spectres, dragons, etc.

Quote from: Arohtar;806790...

I love D&D, so somehow it hurts to reinvent or change anything. That is the problem.  ...

Yeah, let's try to fix the spectre.

...

First the last, the was awesome sauce!! You made Specters EXTRA creepy, super cool and explained why they don't take over the world. Frankly your Specters have way more flavor than the bog-standard ones! Very well done. Seriously, that was fantastic.

Second the first - D&D is MADE to be modified! It's just calls out for people to touch it up, tailor it to their setting or mix & match rules to fit a group's fancy. Check out some of those OSR games (you can buy PDFs on the cheap) and see where other creative DM's took their ideas. This really is the spirit of the OSR; making the game your own and playing/creating it with enthusiasm.

Quote from: TristramEvans;806805actually, maybe there is a good parallel here. The largest civilization on earth is of ants. Buta human can easily kill an ant. So the questionis why don't humans just wipe out all the ants?

The answer is of course because humans have other things to do with their time. They have other motivations. They're not cartoon villains who just want to spend all day everyday killing ants just because they can. Ultimately, it wouldn't benefit us in any meaningful way. We have our own goals, our own civilizations and ant colonies are largely meaningless to us.

The same equally applies to spectres, dragons, etc.

Ants and people are not in competition for the same resources if they were we would wipe them out. Also they are quite small :)
If you want to look at a species that either does compete, causes us a threat or has something we want then better off looking at American bison, African elephants, European wolves, Indian tigers, whales, etc etc... Or all the other species sitting on the edge or just pushed over the edge of extinction.

Quote from: jibbajibba;806824Ants and people are not in competition for the same resources if they were we would wipe them out.

I'm guessing you've never been to a picnic. :p

Quote from: Arohtar;806728No it does not. My critique is WHY are spectres not commonplace? In the D&D Expert set the few lines about the spectres leaves you thinking. Holy shit! If that's all, then this monster should be everywhere.

thats actually a fair point (i dont agree with it but it does throw 1/3 of what matt said right out the window)

Spectres do not take over the D&D universe because the setting comes first. i.e. the idea of a pseudo-medievalish world with magic and a few spectres in lonely places is primary, the mechanical rules come second, and the DM makes it so. It's not a ecosystem simulation where you input the rules, wind it up and let it go.

Why does this fallacy come up over and over again?

Quote from: jibbajibba;806824Ants and people are not in competition for the same resources if they were we would wipe them out. Also they are quite small :)

I don't think spectres and humans are in competition for the same resources either.

Quote from: Ravenswing;806787To expand on this for Tuypo's benefit, APAs came out of science-fiction fandom in the 1930s.  What these were, in effect, were collections of blogs, with people often taking space to comment on one another's submissions.  You'd type up however many pages of stuff you wanted on a mimeograph sheet, you'd send it in (along with a check to cover the costs) to someone who printed and collated the things, and would mail them out.  They'd come out once a month, for the most part.

The biggest one in the RPG field was Alarums & Excursions, which was actually the first dedicated RPG publication ever, and a great honking lot of pros and future pros contributed, back in the day; I was an active contributor in the late 70s and early 80s, contemporaneously with guys like Dave Hargrave, Ed Simbalist, Greg Stafford and the like.  It's still being published today, even if the Internet's put paid to the model.

well thats pretty cool i guess it was my youth showing rather then foreignness

Quote from: Arohtar;806790Thanks. I will probably take a look at 5th edition D&D. Last time I looked, we were at edition 3, and I could see that many additions had been made to balance the spells.

I love D&D, so somehow it hurts to reinvent or change anything. That is the problem. But I think the authors must have forgotten to write some details about the spectre for example (or my logic will break down), and adding those missing limitations should be all right I guess.

Yeah, let's try to fix the spectre. Here are some thoughts (not thought through, I am just going to write). The threat of spectres invading our lands in kind of cool. Who does no love the idea of Nazgûl entering Bree and chasing the hobbitts through the wilderness? So I would prefer to avoid making the spectres' location fixed. The threat of them multiplying might also be interesting, so maybe that should be kept too. I think to a lesser degree though.

I think I would take away their flying ability. We can let them float along the ground at normal walking speed such that peasants can outrun them. If they can get hold of a horse (not able to escape from a stable for example), maybe they can drive it mad with fear and ride it till it drops (if they are in a hurry). During the day they must hide from the sun or (some rule killing them slowly if exposed to sunlight). When they are closing in on someone, the victim will feel a fear gripping his heart. This fear has a range of two miles. If someone is sleeping, she will have nightmares and possibly wake. Nature reacts on spectres moving through it with darker weather, chill winds, rustling leaves and fleeing animals. This also happens on a two mile radius. Hence a hunter would notice something was wrong if spectres were travelling is his direction. As the front of the area of fear passed him, mice would be running through the leaves, trees would rustle their branches in protest, and a chill and dark wind would seem to emerge from the forest. Just as the front passed, a cold hand of fear would grip the heart of the forester, and he would have to make a saving throw vs. death ray or piss his pants and another saving throw or shit his pants. If the spectres are not moving (travelling), nature will calm down, and people will be able to close in on them without noticing them. Animals like horses with sharper senses might react though, and the area around the spectre lair will generally become deserted (of course bats, rats, dark birds and wolves are not afraid).

Usually spectres prefer to stay in their lair where they enjoy the scary athmosphere in their home, sleeping, howling with their thin voices and playing dice, but sometimes, at full moon or some other occation, the spectres go on a rampage. They wake from their sleep and open their pointy, white eyes. The shine of their eyes become brighter, and inside their skulls big red letters spell KILL! (Often this happens at the same time as other dead bodies (or event the half dead bodies of old people) come to life as zombies with undead brains craving for BRAIN).
The spectres exit their lair, stumbling through nature, and if they can catch a warm blooded animal, they scare it half to death, rip it apart and roll their bodies in the carcass, bathing in the blood.

The energy drain does not work by touch. The spectre needs to obtain a grip of the victims throat from the front, and then it needs to look the victim in the face for three rounds, hissing and scaring the victim, pulling life force from it. After the three rounds the first level drain will occur (only one level), after three more rounds in the grip, another level drain will occur. After this the victim will be drained no more, and the spectres will leave him (if still alive). The victim will be in a coma for 1d4 days and then wake up, maybe with a disturbing mental link to the spectre. The blood drenched, rampaging spectres usually subdue their victims by beating them with sticks, fists and kicks before either ripping them apart or energy draining them.

The spectres' bodies are ghostly and half transparent, but they are solid (and cold to the touch). As mentioned the spectres can't fly, but they make no noise when moving, and they are good at climbing. Spectres need to wear some clothes or cloaks when travelling, or they will catch a cold, but in some situations a spectre might want to be naked (to exploit its half transparency for stealth for example). Spectres take half damage from normal weapons. Their bodies disintegrate when they are slain.

Spectres often go for a walk when not rampaging, but when not angry, they are afraid of life. Laughter and ordinary women and children make them afraid, sad and angry, and when not on the rampage, every time their half circle of fear (moving two miles ahead in front of them) crosses a human, they need to make a saving throw vs. death ray or loose 1 hp. Hence they prefer to walk in deserted wilderness areas. Loosing hp to a lonely hunter (for example) can make them angry though, and they might choose to look for the culprit that made them suffer and drain him of his life force.

If they feel they need to multiply, spectres will kindnap a human and energy drain it in their lair. The human needs to be held for 3d6 days before being ready for the ritual. The ritual involves the human being energy drained and emptied of blood, and the next night, it will rise as a spectre. The preparation of the ritual makes nature react with bad weather, often lightning and thunder. This happens 2d4 days before the ritual is ready.

Spectres in permanent rampage mode have been known to attack human settlements, attempting to create a big ritual to transform the whole population at once.

Well, that must be enough for now. Just some thoughts. Your question made me want to try to find an answer. I do not know if I like it. Maybe loosing the uncorporeality is too much of a change, but how can an uncorporeal monster punch you in the face? Other ideas are welcome.

well thats impresive you managed to make something interesting with a lot of changes with it still being recognisable as a spectre good work (at first i was afraid it was going to reach the point where you cant call them spectres anymore but you managed to avoid that)

Quote from: TristramEvans;806831I don't think spectres and humans are in competition for the same resources either.

well in a way they do specters want the resource of humans we dont use ourselves for the same thing as a spectre but its still the same resource

Quote from: tuypo1;806837well in a way they do specters want the resource of humans we dont use ourselves for the same thing as a spectre but its still the same resource

Spectres want what now?

specters want people to kill we dont want them to kill people we like people we are the resource

Quote from: tuypo1;806840specters want people to kill we dont want them to kill people we like people we are the resource

I have a hard time finding that believable as a motivation. That spectres just sit around all night thinking "boy I'd like to kill people. Thats my raison d'etre, yessir. Love killing me some people. Guess what I want for Saturnalius this year? To kill some people. Kill, kill, kill. Gee I looooove killin peoples"

Somehow I think the mental workings of the undead are a bit more complex than that

i was thinking more for reproduction i was also going to point out that they hate all life but i checked and they dont but they are lawful evil so they will probably want minions and things

still what you are saying ties back into the major flaw of the op why would the specters do that

Quote from: TristramEvans;806843I have a hard time finding that believable as a motivation. That spectres just sit around all night thinking "boy I'd like to kill people. Thats my raison d'etre, yessir. Love killing me some people. Guess what I want for Saturnalius this year? To kill some people. Kill, kill, kill. Gee I looooove killin peoples"

Actually, I kind of buy that as motivation (cf most any zombie movie). They're undead, they hate own existence, and can't even end it...they hate the living out of pure envy...and hatred. :)

Thus, undead totally consumed with the need to kill (and/or feed) make sense to me. Of course, I'm also in the "most powerful undead are bound to a certain location". Whether this is magical binding, or just a side effect of the murderous insanity that comes from being undead, I don't particularly care.

But I totally accept that some types of sentient undead want to destroy living creatures as an end.

i prefer a good mix of undead variety's myself with all sorts of different rules look at the epic level handbook undead make up a large amount of the creatures within but each and every one is interesting beside the others

Look. Specters earn 20% of the income of any 1st tier converts + a 1% bonus of each person a convert converts up to 20 tiers deep. It's simple economics. It's about breadth AND depth.

Also, Jello.

Quote from: jibbajibba;806669See that is illogical.
If you play Spectres as written and make them desire to take over the world so they become a threat akin to how the OP described them. Then the PCs are basically fucked unless you parachute them in at 13th level or something.
Imagine a zombie movie but replace the Zombies with Spectres.... doing a 2 level power drain on a hit.... hmmm.... you better have a GM supplied anti-spectre McGuffin or hopeless.

Thing is. "as written"... A Spectre has no desire to go out and take over the world or even propigate itself by making more spectres. It is simply there. If the DM wants to make them want to take over the world. Then that is on the individual DM to parse out.
Also note that its alignment is Chaotic. Which in BX is not inherintly evil. And in BX it could even be friendly on encounter as per page B24. And this plays into the Charisma discussion in another thread because a good CHA means the encounter is more likely to go in the players favour.

Which brings up the interesting possibility of a Spectre seeking to specterize the world with good (if somewhat skewed) intentions.

And if you ever get the chance. Check out a novel called "Skeletons" which is essentially a spectre apocalypse. And has good and bad factions.

while it is true that the chaotic does not mean evil in 3.5 at least it is evil and is in fact lawful which is a good indication it was only chaotic due to the lack of a good evil axis

Yes, there are shit tons of things in DnD that do not make much, if any, sense.

Why the hell are all the spells for dungeon adventuring instead of general daily stuff?  

How come dwarves don't have Dex penalties with their chubby little fingers and out of control girth to height ratio?

What possible bone and muscle structures could make all the 6-limbed flying critters possible?  Or a 24 foot tall dude with the body structure of a human?  

What the hell is up with learning being tied to discrete chunks gained from either theft or killing?

The list can easily go on as long as one desires to keep typing.

im pretty sure there are a hell of a lot of spells that are not combat spells besides there not going to bother listing most non-combat spells

Do they not have cantrips anymore?

im not sure why you associate cantrips with non combat

Quote from: Doom;806845Actually, I kind of buy that as motivation (cf most any zombie movie). They're undead, they hate own existence, and can't even end it...they hate the living out of pure envy...and hatred. :)

Thus, undead totally consumed with the need to kill (and/or feed) make sense to me. Of course, I'm also in the "most powerful undead are bound to a certain location". Whether this is magical binding, or just a side effect of the murderous insanity that comes from being undead, I don't particularly care.

But I totally accept that some types of sentient undead want to destroy living creatures as an end.

I think theres a difference between an insane wrathful wraith that attacks any living creature it sees vs a ghost that literally is motivated to fly around the world and continuously fly-by shots a castle to wipe out all humans inside. That implies a sort of logical intent that I dont really see a creature who barely exists on this plane exhibiting.

Quote from: tuypo1;806868im not sure why you associate cantrips with non combat

Because cantrips were (in 1st and 2nd edition) a 0-level non-combat spell that allowed someone to accomplish just about any minor effect as long as they concentrated. I think in Unearthed Arcana they allowed a Wizard to siulate any proficiency (or maybe that was in a Dragon article).

Cantrips basically represented all the minor magic like making a wand light up, opening a locked door, causing a sewing machine to operate itself, etc.

yeah it just does not work for spectres by default of course there are similar creatures who fit that perfectly

im not sure what being on the ethereal plane has to do with it though

Quote from: TristramEvans;806870Because cantrips were (in 1st and 2nd edition) a 0-level non-combat spell that allowed someone to accomplish just about any minor effect as long as they concentrated. I think in Unearthed Arcana they allowed a Wizard to siulate any proficiency (or maybe that was in a Dragon article).

Cantrips basically represented all the minor magic like making a wand light up, opening a locked door, causing a sewing machine to operate itself, etc.

fair enough

one day i really need to learn the old editions so i can understand certain conversations better

Finding out why a mage is flying around, blowing the hell out of everything with fireballs, tracking them down and ending their threat could make a pretty kick ass scenario. They've got to land at some point to eat, sleep, etc.

A rising Specter army would be a cool plot hook. Who's behind it and how can it be stopped?

vecna is behind it

Quote from: tuypo1;806875vecna is behind it

Probably found out what some people were doing with his hand...

nah if anything thats just going to cause him to make mistakes he always wants to take over the time this plan came to fruition just happened to coincide with him checking up on his hand he is unable to think clearly at the moment he will be easy to defeat

Quote from: tuypo1;806875vecna is behind it

I thought they made interesting plot hooks. Get lemons, make lemonade and all that.

Not been keeping up with the thread, but it has had a brief impact.

I watched the first two Hobbit movies (TL;DR - meh.).

While not an inconsistency (maybe it is), I was left wondering "who makes all the roof tiles for Esgaroth (Lake Town)?" Somebody must do it. There are lots of tiles. Maybe they're imported from Mordor and produced by cheap orcish labour? Are these hives of industry noted in Tolkien's maps and writings?

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;806879While not an inconsistency (maybe it is), I was left wondering "who makes all the roof tiles for Esgaroth (Lake Town)?" Somebody must do it. There are lots of tiles. Maybe they're imported from Mordor and produced by cheap orcish labour? Are these hives of industry noted in Tolkien's maps and writings?

Heh, well, speaking as someone who was paid at one point to fill in some of the blanks, as a storyteller, mythologist and a philologist, JRRT had game.

As a world designer, however ... well.  He either didn't know what he was doing or didn't care.  He had unsustainable pockets of civilization in a vast sea of empty, populations never expanded or grew, centuries and millennia would pass without change, and it set the stage for how a lot of fantasy literature and RPGs would do their business from there on forward.

Quote from: Arohtar;806558Please add more examples, and let us ridicule these game designers with no ability for logic reasoning.

Instead of that, why don't you design a game setting for us that you think makes sense while still working as, well, a game setting?

Let's see how you do it.

Quote from: Critias;806884Instead of that, why don't you design a game setting for us that you think makes sense while still working as, well, a game setting?

Let's see how you do it.

honestly i hope he does judging by that spectre writeup im a huge fan of monster manuals that give background info on there monsters the spectre has the advantage of being written to fix things so most monsters wont get quite that big a write up but even a 1/4 of that would be incredible even if i only used the monster books i would still buy the whole set just to support the creation of more monster books (stupid piece of shit fiend folio giving the decent lore to the monsters that needed it the least at least clarify what exactly some things do)

This thread went... odd places. :) Some good stuff tho. Here's Earthdawn's "Spectral Dancer" description for comparison (because some-one mentioned a reaction roll for spectres). Earthdawn has many "spectre" type undead, but this I think is the closest to D&D's, aside from the fact that Horrors make more Spectral Dancers...

QuoteSpectral Dancer
  Undead creations of the Horrors, spectral dancers are individuals
who possessed considerable charisma and social skill in life. They
appear as phantoms of the bodies they once inhabited. To make
a spectral dancer, the Horror severs the dancer's spirit from his
body in a grisly ritual, so that the dancer loses almost all ability to
communicate with other sentient beings. He can occasionally see,
hear, smell, and taste the world of the living, but cannot make contact
with his fellows. The spectral dancer can only speak in garbled
howls, and loses all ability to write, draw, or communicate in any
way. The desire to communicate and the need for companionship
remain, heightened by the ritual to the point of torment.

Spellcasting (8): 20
Spells: Spirit Dart 15, Spirit Grip 19

Rules
  Their utter isolation drives spectral dancers insane. The spirits
flit in and out of humanity, moving in a chaotic, frenzied dance.
Desperate to communicate, a spectral dancer approaches a character
and dances for one to three rounds, waiting for the character
to join it. If the character turns down the "invitation," the spectral
dancer attacks with desperate fury, using its Spellcasting Step.
The creature makes a Spellcasting Test against the target's Spell
Defense. If the test succeeds, the spectral dancer makes a Spirit
Dart Test to determine how much damage is inflicted on the target.
Mystic Armor protects against this damage. It continues to attack
until the character dies or the dancer is destroyed. Keep in mind
that these devastating magical attacks can kill even a stout troll
within a few rounds. The spectral dancer's almost incorporeal
form gives it a high Physical Defense, reflecting the difficulty of
finding a solid spot to hit amid the swirling, pulsing light and fog.
Though not an easy task, a determined (and lucky) character can
find and attack such a spot.

  A character may also attempt to defend himself by joining the
spectral dancer in the dance, but this carries its own danger. The
character and the dancer remain locked in the dance until the
character either dies or manages to assuage the dancer's terrible
loneliness for a brief moment. Once joined, the character must
see the dance through to its conclusion. During each round that
the dance continues, the dancer's movements cause a number of
Steps of damage to the character equal to the number of rounds
the dance has lasted. For example, on round five of the dance, the
dancer inflicts Step 5 damage, Step 6 damage on round six, and so
on. No armor protects against this damage.

  During any round of the dance, the character can try to make
contact with the dancer in order to ease its loneliness. To do this,
the character makes a Charisma Test against the spectral dancer's
Social Defense; at the gamemaster's discretion the character may
use another Charisma-based talent for the test. To ease the spirit's
loneliness and escape its clutches, the character must achieve
an Extraordinary result against the dancer's Social Defense. Each
result level achieved adds a +1 bonus to the character's Charisma
Test for the duration of the dance, as his empathy with and understanding
of the spectral dancer improves. As the dance nears its
end, the character often sees or relives the dancer's memories. Once
the character achieves an Extraordinary result, the spectral dancer's
motions slow, then stop. The dancer thanks the character for
giving it brief companionship, then fades away.

One last try (posts screwed with tech messups, so abbreviated this time) ...

1)  BX cut what AD&D stipulated even in the MM. Best to approach it as OD&D assumed, as exemplary and incomplete. Why do ghosts not rule the world in whatever stories inspire your campaign milieu? Why do they exist in the first place?


2)  Same reasons as ever! Why build the Green Zone or an aircraft  carrier when there are nuclear weapons? Why put a combination lock on a box holding keys  to a lock on a wood door that is next to a glass window? The cost effectiveness of measures  depends on what thhey normally accomplish, not on lack of fitness for jobs they're not meant to do.

3) Dragons are weak, especially with  wizards cheap enough by the dozen to make castles as useless as you assume. They are also not prolific.

4) Not even a real problem from what I've seen. Why would gold-laden adventurers not by preference pass up a thorpe with no acommodation better than a barn,  in favor of the inn down the road (or even that in favor of a friend's  house)?

5) Same reasons as ever. You could try actually playing the ever-loving game to see what works and what doesn't. It's not like the guys just sat around playing Monopoly for 3 years before writing those little brown booklets.

Quote from: TristramEvans;806843I have a hard time finding that believable as a motivation. That spectres just sit around all night thinking "boy I'd like to kill people. Thats my raison d'etre, yessir. Love killing me some people. Guess what I want for Saturnalius this year? To kill some people. Kill, kill, kill. Gee I looooove killin peoples"

Somehow I think the mental workings of the undead are a bit more complex than that

Not the ones on which the AD&D spectre is based, unless they would rather there were nobody fully alive in the first place. But they are limited to haunting desolate places; an entity that possesses the living  (or recently demised) would be more typical of mass-murdering revenants, I  think.

Quote from: tuypo1;806836well thats impresive you managed to make something interesting with a lot of changes with it still being recognisable as a spectre good work (at first i was afraid it was going to reach the point where you cant call them spectres anymore but you managed to avoid that)

Yeah, I actually feel maybe they are too much like wights or wraiths now. And too hot-blooded. They should probably be truly incorporeal. It's hopeless.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;806879Not been keeping up with the thread, but it has had a brief impact.

I watched the first two Hobbit movies (TL;DR - meh.).

While not an inconsistency (maybe it is), I was left wondering "who makes all the roof tiles for Esgaroth (Lake Town)?" Somebody must do it. There are lots of tiles. Maybe they're imported from Mordor and produced by cheap orcish labour? Are these hives of industry noted in Tolkien's maps and writings?

In Battle of the Five Armies Peter Jackson introduces some worms that seemingly can dig through stone and earth as fast as troops can march. With such worms, why did the orcs not choose to exit inside the Mountain, close to the gold? If they had done this, they could have thrown Thorin and his few dwarves over the battlements and occupied the Mountain, leaving the men, elves and dwarves outside. But no no, instead the orcs exit close to the target, but with an army of men, elves and dwarves between them and the target.

Quote from: Ravenswing;806882Heh, well, speaking as someone who was paid at one point to fill in some of the blanks, as a storyteller, mythologist and a philologist, JRRT had game.

As a world designer, however ... well.  He either didn't know what he was doing or didn't care.  He had unsustainable pockets of civilization in a vast sea of empty, populations never expanded or grew, centuries and millennia would pass without change, and it set the stage for how a lot of fantasy literature and RPGs would do their business from there on forward.

Yes, I think you are right.

Quote from: Telarus;806962This thread went... odd places. :) Some good stuff tho. Here's Earthdawn's "Spectral Dancer" description for comparison (because some-one mentioned a reaction roll for spectres). Earthdawn has many "spectre" type undead, but this I think is the closest to D&D's, aside from the fact that Horrors make more Spectral Dancers...

Interesting. Thanks :-)

Quote from: The_Shadow;806830It's not a ecosystem simulation where you input the rules, wind it up and let it go.

Isn't it? I would like to think of it that way.

Quote from: TristramEvans;806805actually, maybe there is a good parallel here. The largest civilization on earth is of ants. Buta human can easily kill an ant. So the questionis why don't humans just wipe out all the ants?

The answer is of course because humans have other things to do with their time. They have other motivations. They're not cartoon villains who just want to spend all day everyday killing ants just because they can. Ultimately, it wouldn't benefit us in any meaningful way. We have our own goals, our own civilizations and ant colonies are largely meaningless to us.

The same equally applies to spectres, dragons, etc.

Yes. Lack of interest could be the reason for spectres and dragons not taking over the world. Maybe spectres could really wipe us out if they wanted to; they just don't. I think it was their reproductive ability that made me think in terms of them spreading and taking over the world.

Also the spectres "holding back" takes away some of their appeal as enemies I think. Then they are best left alone because they are actually stronger than us. Often it is nice with enemies that wants to take over your world, but whom you are able to defeat. But I agree that some monsters could be living happily in their lairs (like Smaug), only attacking if disturbed. However it might be frustrating for our human adventurers to realize that they are ants compared to some monster, and that the only hope for their race is that the monster does not take an interest in wiping it out.

Quote from: The_Shadow;806830Spectres do not take over the D&D universe because the setting comes first. i.e. the idea of a pseudo-medievalish world with magic and a few spectres in lonely places is primary, the mechanical rules come second, and the DM makes it so. It's not a ecosystem simulation where you input the rules, wind it up and let it go.

Why does this fallacy come up over and over again?

Heh, fallacy is the heart and soul of this website.

Quote from: Arohtar;807257Isn't it? I would like to think of it that way.

You are picking the wrong game if that is your desire.

Quote from: Bren;807273You are picking the wrong game if that is your desire.

Rules that are in such good correspondence with the game world setting that they can be thought of as the laws of nature in the game world, is a dream scenario to me. I realize it is difficult to achieve, but in my opinion it is the goal. From what you just wrote, I conclude that you think this is NOT to be desired. You WANT inconsistencies? A D&D game world SHOULD be out of sync with the rules, or 'the game is not for you'. Please explain why.

Quote from: Arohtar;807278Rules that are in such good correspondence with the game world setting that they can be thought of as the laws of nature in the game world, is a dream scenario to me. I realize it is difficult to achieve, but in my opinion it is the goal. From what you just wrote, I conclude that you think this is NOT to be desired. You WANT inconsistencies? A D&D game world SHOULD be out of sync with the rules, or 'the game is not for you'. Please explain why.

Your conclusion is incorrect.

1. Rules typically tell you what the attributes of individual monsters are and how those individual attributes function. Setting typically tells you how the individual monsters fit together to make up a world. Depding on the aims of the designers that world may or may not be very consistent.

2. The level of effort required to create detailed rules and a setting that has few if any inconsistencies is considerable. It's a lot more work than creating rules and setting that require some GM adjudication and it is a lot less flexible for adjusting the setting to suit different tastes. There is an inherent trade off between consistency and flexibility.

3. Most people don't care about a few inconsistencies and some people don't care about a lot of inconsistencies. Most GMs are easily able to deal with a few setting inconsistencies. Many GMs find tweaking settings and providing their own take on setting consistency is part of the fun of being the GM. If everything can be systematized to run without a GM then I don't need a GM and I might as well play WoW.

4. D&D was never intended to be consistent in the way you want it to be. It was from it's first days a kitchen sink setting where DMs put in all sorts of stuff because it was fun, not because it was internally consistent. The megadungeon conceit itself is not consistent with a wind it up and let it go type of world construction.

1. implies that looking at the rules to infer a setting is usually a futile effort. Your apparent desire to be able to just wind up the game rules (ignoring the setting) and hope the rules alone generate a consistent setting is doomed to failure.

4. implies that D&D is the wrong game if you want consistency. It is designed more for flexibility and abstract resolution.

2. & 3. together imply that few game rules and settings are going to give you what you want out of the box. 1. & 2. also explain why publishers who are interested in selling product aren't focused on addressing your niche desires since what you want is not what the majority of the buying public wants.

Quote from: Bren;807281Your conclusion is incorrect.

I thought I knew basic logic, but you've beat me Bren:

The_Shadow: "It's not a ecosystem simulation where you input the rules, wind it up and let it go."

Arohtar: "Isn't it? I would like to think of it that way."

Bren: "You are picking the wrong game if that is your desire."

Arohtar: "I conclude that you think this is NOT to be desired."

Bren: "Your conclusion is incorrect."

Quote from: Bren;807281Your conclusion is incorrect.

1. Rules typically tell you what the attributes of individual monsters are and how those individual attributes function. Setting typically tells you how the individual monsters fit together to make up a world. Depding on the aims of the designers that world may or may not be very consistent.

2. The level of effort required to create detailed rules and a setting that has few if any inconsistencies is considerable. It's a lot more work than creating rules and setting that require some GM adjudication and it is a lot less flexible for adjusting the setting to suit different tastes. There is an inherent trade off between consistency and flexibility.

3. Most people don't care about a few inconsistencies and some people don't care about a lot of inconsistencies. Most GMs are easily able to deal with a few setting inconsistencies. Many GMs find tweaking settings and providing their own take on setting consistency is part of the fun of being the GM. If everything can be systematized to run without a GM then I don't need a GM and I might as well play WoW.

4. D&D was never intended to be consistent in the way you want it to be. It was from it's first days a kitchen sink setting where DMs put in all sorts of stuff because it was fun, not because it was internally consistent. The megadungeon conceit itself is not consistent with a wind it up and let it go type of world construction.

1. implies that looking at the rules to infer a setting is usually a futile effort. Your apparent desire to be able to just wind up the game rules (ignoring the setting) and hope the rules alone generate a consistent setting is doomed to failure.

4. implies that D&D is the wrong game if you want consistency. It is designed more for flexibility and abstract resolution.

2. & 3. together imply that few game rules and settings are going to give you what you want out of the box. 1. & 2. also explain why publishers who are interested in selling product aren't focused on addressing your niche desires since what you want is not what the majority of the buying public wants.

1) I agree.

2) I agree. Consistency is a big task and is in conflict with flexibility for the DM. (But this does not rule out consistency as an ideal).

3) I don't care whether some people don't care about a lot of inconsistencies. Good for them. I don't understand what you mean by a GMs "take on setting consistency". I agree that part of the fun of being the DM is to be able to change the setting or the rules, but that is not in conflict with making the changes consistent (if I don't want magic users to rule the world in my setting, I will make them weaker in the rules, for example). A consistent setting does not mean we can do without the DM. Where did that come from?

4) I know that D&D as a whole is not intended to be consistent. What I mean is that my goal would be for MY CAMPAIGN to be internally consistent. I don't know what the megadungeon conceit is. I have alway felt supported in my consistency viewpoint when reading the rules. Below are two examples. In the first we are advised to use a "wind it up and let it go" thinking, and in the second the impact of the rules on the setting is considered.

D&D Dungeon Master Rulebook p. 47: "Imagine what would happen in the dungeon when the adventurers aren't around. If the monsters would encounter each other often, they should not be enemies; otherwise the dungeon could be ruined! It would nearly be empty before the adventurers arrive, with all the dungeon treasure in the lair of the last survivor."

AD&D 2nd ed. Dungeon Master's Guide p. 69: "One obvious question that arises in the minds of those with a logical bent is "How do other creatures fight these immune monsters?""

Quote from: Arohtar;8072993) I don't care whether some people don't care about a lot of inconsistencies. Good for them.

It isn't about you caring or not caring. It is an observation that what you want from the game is different than what most people buying game stuff want. Which is an explanation for why you aren't finding what you want in D&D (or in most other games, I suspect).

QuoteI don't understand what you mean by a GMs "take on setting consistency". I agree that part of the fun of being the DM is to be able to change the setting or the rules, but that is not in conflict with making the changes consistent

It is in conflict with looking at the rules alone without any GM created setting and expecting that to be consistent. Which is what you were doing with your complaint about spectres. D&D explicitly expects the DM to handle the level of consistency in the game.

Quote4) I know that D&D as a whole is not intended to be consistent.

You certainly gave me the opposite impression when you wrote this:

Quote from: Arohtar;806558Lets us collect examples of ridiculous inconsistencies from the D&D game…

QuoteI don't know what the megadungeon conceit is.

Among other things, that a megadungeon is ecologically viable e.g. there is enough food for the monsters to eat or that we ignore the inconsistency of the predator-prey relationship because a dungeon is a fun game conceit.

QuoteI have alway felt supported in my consistency viewpoint when reading the rules. Below are two examples. In the first we are advised to use a "wind it up and let it go" thinking, and in the second the impact of the rules on the setting is considered.

I don’t read those as supporting the notion that the setting should be fully or even mostly consistent nor that you should be able to wind it up and let it go. I read those as saying think about the implications of your choices. Consider how the world outside of the PCs works.

Here is an example of intentional rules inconsistency: The original D&D wilderness tables included monsters from Barsoom. I never took that to mean that the D&D world was Mars or that Barsoomian creatures were running loose on Newhon, Hyborea, or pseudo-earth. I took that as an example of here is something you could do. You could run a game set on Barsoom…or not. The GM includes or excludes Barsoomian critters based on the setting the DM creates.

Quote from: Bren;807304It isn't about you caring or not caring. It is an observation that what you want from the game is different than what most people buying game stuff want. Which is an explanation for why you aren't finding what you want in D&D (or in most other games, I suspect).

Yes, the thread is about (me) caring about inconsistencies. Thank you for explaining why they exist. You are of course right that it is because people buy the game anyway. I myself did, and I like it despite its inconsistencies. Of course a consistent world should not be the primary priority, or D&D would not have been published yet. I still think it is interesting to discover and try to remove inconsistencies though.

Quote from: Bren;807304It is in conflict with looking at the rules alone without any GM created setting and expecting that to be consistent. Which is what you were doing with your complaint about spectres. D&D explicitly expects the DM to handle the level of consistency in the game.

My complaint about the spectres was not a rules internal inconsistency. The rules are fine with the spectre as specified there. The conflict arises when we apply those spectre rules to a typical setting (such as descibed in the old D&D rulebooks) where spectres are rare. That seems to contradict the rules, where they seem to be able to multiply quite easily.

What do you mean by "D&D explicitly expects the DM to handle the level of consistency in the game"? When you write "explicitly" I conclude that it is stated in black or white somewhere. Where?

Quote from: Bren;807304You certainly gave me the opposite impression when you wrote this:

Actually there is no contradiction. I realize some inconsistencies are there because of lack of intent to remove them (medieval caste architecture in a world with flying monsters for example), but others I think the publisher would consider errors (like the too powerful spectre). We can look for examples of each.

I think the first category is the most interesting. I don't think the spectre example is very interesting. It is just a plain shortcoming that can "easily" be fixed. It is a more interesting question to what degree we are willing to change our beloved Tolkien type world in order to obtain better internal consistency in the game world.

(The descrciption of the spectre in the second ed. AD&D Monstrous Manual is much better than the D&D Expert Rules version I criticized, so I think TSR would agree that something was missing in the D&D Expert Rules).

Quote from: Arohtar;807314I still think it is interesting to discover and try to remove inconsistencies though.

But how one tries to achieve consistency is dependent on the campaign setting. Without a clearly spelled out setting your fixes are just a theoretical and somewhat pointless thought exercise.

QuoteMy complaint about the spectres was not a rules internal inconsistency. The rules are fine with the spectre as specified there. The conflict arises when we apply those spectre rules to a typical setting (such as descibed in the old D&D rulebooks) where spectres are rare. That seems to contradict the rules, where they seem to be able to multiply quite easily.

Originally the problem you reference is a rules problem not a campaign setting problem because there is no detailed campaign setting described in the old D&D rulebooks. The campaign setting is whatever any particular DM chose to create. Undead wouldn't even exist in a Barsoomian campaign while they would be more limited in a Tolkienesque campaign. Which is the way the game was originally intended to be created and played. It was supposed to be different settings based on individual DM preference and interest.

QuoteWhat do you mean by "D&D explicitly expects the DM to handle the level of consistency in the game"? When you write "explicitly" I conclude that it is stated in black or white somewhere. Where?

I mean that the campaign world is something that the DM creates and owns. The rules are a tool to aid that creation and to assist in running the world. That is described in the OD&D rules in multiple places. The game is explicitly a DIY game. Later TSR created setting information. (Probably because there was a demand and they could create and sell product to meet that demand.) I suppose this may have given some people the impression that the campaign setting in D&D was the responsibility of the designer rather than of the DM. Originally that was not at all the case.

QuoteI think the first category is the most interesting. I don't think the spectre example is very interesting. It is just a plain shortcoming that can "easily" be fixed. It is a more interesting question to what degree we are willing to change our beloved Tolkien type world in order to obtain better internal consistency in the game world.

If you want a Tolkien type world then you don't have D&D type undead. Instead you have two main types of spectral undead.

(1) Barrow Wights who can attack victims to create new Barrow Wights (which was their plan for the hobbits). But they are limited by being bound to their tomb/grave site, by being trapped in old wrongs and battles, and they seem to be dispelled or banished by sunlight. For the latter note that Bombadil put their treasure out in the open where sunlight would shine of the loot to break any connection to the Barrow Wights. So Wights don't take over the world because (a) they are bound to their tomb, (b) they are trapped or locked into their old thoughts and cares and aren't interested in new conquests or earthly power, and (c) they can't abide direct sunlight.

If you want out of the box consistency, they you should try something like Pendragon that has a narrower focus for the rules and setting. The Pendragon campaign setting avoids the sort of problems you are seeing in D&D right out of the box. On the other hand, Pendragon is not all that flexible for a kitchen sink gaming approach. The modifications needed to add the flexibility are going to erode the consistency.

(2) Nazgul which seem the model that most closely resemble Spectres. Note that in Tolkien Nazgul (a) can't fly without their flying beasts, (b) they are weakened by daylight (note their weakness in the Shire and preference for attacks at night in Bree and on Weathertop), (c) they fear fire (which Aragorn uses to hold them off or drive them off on Weathertop, and (d) their victims do not become Nazgul – obvious really or we wouldn't have Nine Ringwraiths, but 9 million Ringwraiths.

Notice that even without powerful clerics, MUs, and paladins you still don't get a world that is dominated by Tolkien-style undead because the undead you have in the campaign are limited in geography, interest, and power and because the truly powerful individual undead, i.e. the Ringwraiths, can't spawn copies of themselves.

Quote from: Bren;807321But how one tries to achieve consistency is dependent on the campaign setting. Without a clearly spelled out setting your fixes are just a theoretical and somewhat pointless thought exercise.

Originally the problem you reference is a rules problem not a campaign setting problem because there is no detailed campaign setting described in the old D&D rulebooks. The campaign setting is whatever any particular DM chose to create. Undead wouldn't even exist in a Barsoomian campaign while they would be more limited in a Tolkienesque campaign. Which is the way the game was originally intended to be created and played. It was supposed to be different settings based on individual DM preference and interest.

I mean that the campaign world is something that the DM creates and owns. The rules are a tool to aid that creation and to assist in running the world. That is described in the OD&D rules in multiple places. The game is explicitly a DIY game. Later TSR created setting information. (Probably because there was a demand and they could create and sell product to meet that demand.) I suppose this may have given some people the impression that the campaign setting in D&D was the responsibility of the designer rather than of the DM. Originally that was not at all the case.

If you want a Tolkien type world then you don't have D&D type undead. Instead you have two main types of spectral undead.

(1) Barrow Wights who can attack victims to create new Barrow Wights (which was their plan for the hobbits). But they are limited by being bound to their tomb/grave site, by being trapped in old wrongs and battles, and they seem to be dispelled or banished by sunlight. For the latter note that Bombadil put their treasure out in the open where sunlight would shine of the loot to break any connection to the Barrow Wights. So Wights don't take over the world because (a) they are bound to their tomb, (b) they are trapped or locked into their old thoughts and cares and aren't interested in new conquests or earthly power, and (c) they can't abide direct sunlight.

If you want out of the box consistency, they you should try something like Pendragon that has a narrower focus for the rules and setting. The Pendragon campaign setting avoids the sort of problems you are seeing in D&D right out of the box. On the other hand, Pendragon is not all that flexible for a kitchen sink gaming approach. The modifications needed to add the flexibility are going to erode the consistency.

(2) Nazgul which seem the model that most closely resemble Spectres. Note that in Tolkien Nazgul (a) can't fly without their flying beasts, (b) they are weakened by daylight (note their weakness in the Shire and preference for attacks at night in Bree and on Weathertop), (c) they fear fire (which Aragorn uses to hold them off or drive them off on Weathertop, and (d) their victims do not become Nazgul – obvious really or we wouldn't have Nine Ringwraiths, but 9 million Ringwraiths.

Notice that even without powerful clerics, MUs, and paladins you still don't get a world that is dominated by Tolkien-style undead because the undead you have in the campaign are limited in geography, interest, and power and because the truly powerful individual undead, i.e. the Ringwraiths, can't spawn copies of themselves.

Um... all you did there was changed the monsters to create a more coherent setting.
The OP is just pointing out that the RAW for D&D aren't consistent.
The two perspectives are not contradictory.

It is a little odd to just say that the game is inconsistent but that doesn't matter. Surely attempting to get a coherent game world is an aim for all games, even if its one that may be sacrificed on the altar of playability?

What D&D lacks is decent DM guidelines for creating your own settings and how to make those settings more consistent.

PS - there is in Tolkien the idea that a creature stabbed with a Morgul-blade will eventually fade and become a wraith themselves. So the Ringwraiths can kind of replicate themselves.

Quote from: Bren;807321(1) Barrow Wights who can attack victims to create new Barrow Wights (which was their plan for the hobbits). But they are limited by being bound to their tomb/grave site, by being trapped in old wrongs and battles, and they seem to be dispelled or banished by sunlight. For the latter note that Bombadil put their treasure out in the open where sunlight would shine of the loot to break any connection to the Barrow Wights. So Wights don't take over the world because (a) they are bound to their tomb, (b) they are trapped or locked into their old thoughts and cares and aren't interested in new conquests or earthly power, and (c) they can't abide direct sunlight.

(2) Nazgul which seem the model that most closely resemble Spectres. Note that in Tolkien Nazgul (a) can't fly without their flying beasts, (b) they are weakened by daylight (note their weakness in the Shire and preference for attacks at night in Bree and on Weathertop), (c) they fear fire (which Aragorn uses to hold them off or drive them off on Weathertop, and (d) their victims do not become Nazgul – obvious really or we wouldn't have Nine Ringwraiths, but 9 million Ringwraiths.

Quote from: jibbajibba;807349PS - there is in Tolkien the idea that a creature stabbed with a Morgul-blade will eventually fade and become a wraith themselves. So the Ringwraiths can kind of replicate themselves.

Good points about the Tolkien undead. They remind me how awesome and unsurpassed those monsters are. Also Tolkien states that the primary weapon of the Nazgûl is the fear they create, an effect that can be difficult to replicate in the game.

I have the Pendragon game. It is the best game I have ever seen, so back then I changed my D&D campaign to use those rules. My players did not like the change though (one of them for example felt humiliated when his character fell off a horse), so I had to change it back. If I was to play again, I think I would go for Pendragon once again though, moved to a homemade fantasy world, and with selected spells inspired from D&D and the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.

Quote from: tuypo1;806872fair enough

one day i really need to learn the old editions so i can understand certain conversations better

Just so you know, cantrips came late to the party. A lot of groups never used them and some still don't.

Quote from: jibbajibba;807349Um... all you did there was changed the monsters to create a more coherent setting.

No I changed the monsters to fit the Tolkienesque setting the OP said he had in mind.

QuoteThe OP is just pointing out that the RAW for D&D aren't consistent.
The two perspectives are not contradictory.

The OP postulated a Tolkienesque setting with Spectres and Wraiths using the D&D rules and then was annoyed that the rules he used RAW and the setting he postulated weren't consistent.

QuoteIt is a little odd to just say that the game is inconsistent but that doesn't matter. Surely attempting to get a coherent game world is an aim for all games, even if its one that may be sacrificed on the altar of playability?

The game is a combination of rules and setting. I find it more than a little odd to look at the two in isolation and get annoyed that they don't work together seamlessly. If you want more consistency than change the rules, change the setting, or both. Getting annoyed that someone didn't create rules for the ideosyncratic setting you have in your head is just silly.

QuoteWhat D&D lacks is decent DM guidelines for creating your own settings and how to make those settings more consistent.

The original rules include very broad guidelines. The rules than presumed that the DM would be able to figure out those things without the need for more detailed guidelines or rules. It worked just fine for a lot of people. Clearly it didn't work well for everyone.

QuotePS - there is in Tolkien the idea that a creature stabbed with a Morgul-blade will eventually fade and become a wraith themselves. So the Ringwraiths can kind of replicate themselves.

However the he power of the new ringwraith would be based on the victim's power, not on the parental Ringwraith's power. So if Aragorn was turned he would be probably be a powerful Wraith. Frodo though not too powerful. Merry or Pippin, even less powerful. (As a side note, Hobbits clearly are much more resistant to the power of the ring than most beings. They are more resistant then powerful in and of themselves.) A Galadriel or a Gandalf would potentially be more powerful than the original Wraith. So not replicatation per se. The original Ringwraiths became what they were because they desired greater power and were thus tempted by Sauron. Assuming that they want to create lots of potential rivals (even if they have the ability to do so) ignores the setting information. (They would want to turn Frodo, because he was the Ringbearer and their master Sauron was trying to get them to bring the one ring to him.)

Quote from: Arohtar;807353I have the Pendragon game. It is the best game I have ever seen, so back then I changed my D&D campaign to use those rules. My players did not like the change though (one of them for example felt humiliated when his character fell off a horse), so I had to change it back. If I was to play again, I think I would go for Pendragon once again though, moved to a homemade fantasy world, and with selected spells inspired from D&D and the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.

Pendragon was one of the examples I had in mind of a game that is consistent right out of the box.

Quote from: Bren;807406If you want more consistency than change the rules, change the setting, or both. Getting annoyed that someone didn't create rules for the ideosyncratic setting you have in your head is just silly.

This thread is about getting annoyed over inconsistencies. You think it is silly. Fair enough. I think we all understand that now. Thank you for your contribution.

Quote from: Bren;807406Pendragon was one of the examples I had in mind of a game that is consistent right out of the box.

Yep, I mentioned Pendragon because you did.

Quote from: Arohtar;807416This thread is about getting annoyed over inconsistencies. You think it is silly.

What I think is silly is that you are getting annoyed at inconsistencies that are, in part, of your own making.

Let's look at Spectres as an example. You presume three things are true about Spectres.

1. Spectres have the abilities listed in D&D - specifically, replication, speed, flight, and invulnerability to normal weapons.

2. Spectres are willing to range widely and want to make more Spectres.

3. The setting is the faux-medieval pastiche of castles, villagers, and commoners with a few high levels many of whom are PCs. Thus humans in this setting would be very vulnerable to attack by specters.

Taken together these three presumptions lead to an inconsistent world.

   Which of these presumptions are specified by the rules of D&D? Only 1.

   Which of these presumptions are commonly seen in published settings? Although not required by the rules, 3 is common. Other settings are possible, but you chose to use the common faux medieval setting though it wasn't required.

   Which of these presumptions is not in the rules and not a necessary part of the common faux medieval setting? That would be 2. The one thing you specficially decided you wanted all on your own without help from the rules.

Notice that if you change assumption 2 so that Spectres don't want to range widely from their crypt, lair, or gravesite (for whatever reason) and so that Spectres aren't intersted in replicating themselves (for whatever reason) the inconsistency is gone.

Quote from: Bren;807418What I think is silly is that you are getting annoyed at inconsistencies that are, in part, of your own making.

All right. Yes, I have been using cliché fantasy worlds myself, but I felt like criticizing them anyway. I don't care who made them.

Quote from: Bren;807420Let's look at Spectres as an example. You presume three things are true about Spectres.

1. Spectres have the abilities listed in D&D - specifically, replication, speed, flight, and invulnerability to normal weapons.

2. Spectres are willing to range widely and want to make more Spectres.

3. The setting is the faux-medieval pastiche of castles, villagers, and commoners with a few high levels many of whom are PCs. Thus humans in this setting would be very vulnerable to attack by specters.

Taken together these three presumptions lead to an inconsistent world.

   Which of these presumptions are specified by the rules of D&D? Only 1.

   Which of these presumptions are commonly seen in published settings? Although not required by the rules, 3 is common. Other settings are possible, but you chose to use the common faux medieval setting though it wasn't required.

   Which of these presumptions is not in the rules and not a necessary part of the common faux medieval setting? That would be 2. The one thing you specficially decided you wanted all on your own without help from the rules.

Notice that if you change assumption 2 so that Spectres don't want to range widely from their crypt, lair, or gravesite (for whatever reason) and so that Spectres aren't intersted in replicating themselves (for whatever reason) the inconsistency is gone.

I think we have a problem even replacing 2 with the following weaker assumption:

2. Every spectre can expect to kill at least one human in its career.

For this spectres do not necessarily have to "range widely". It could be accomplished by every spectre travelling from the village where it was created to the neighboring village, for example.

But anyway we agree that if we want to keep the rules and the setting unchanged, we need to make an assumption about the spectres being tied to their lair and/or not wanting to kill. I feel this is a missing assumption in the rules, while you seem to think I have made the error of not assuming it.

The rules say that every "character" killed by a spectre rises as a spectre the next day. If we interpret this as "player character", we can also solve the problem. The reason should then be something like you suggested for Frodo, that the evil spectres only punish their most hated enemies by making them spectres.

Quote from: Arohtar;807424I think we have a problem even replacing 2 with the following weaker assumption:

2. Every spectre can expect to kill at least one human in its career.

For this spectres do not necessarily have to "range widely". It could be accomplished by every spectre travelling from the village where it was created to the neighboring village, for example.

Again you seem really stuck on your idea that spectres wander around creating more spectres. This is the idea that is causing your setting inconsistency. And the idea that a spectre would be created in a village only makes sense if you already assume spectres are wandering from village to village creating more spectres.

So don't assume that.

Assume they stay in their crypt or lair and they only turn the foolish characters who come and disturb their quiet contemplation. Now the villagers who know enough not to enter the tower of the Witchking are perfectly safe from the spectre. And the adventurers who come to loot the tower are in danger just like the rules (and the game) assumed.

Quote from: Arohtar;806558Lets us collect examples of ridiculous inconsistencies from the D&D game, and maybe some ways of removing them.

...


Please add more examples, and let us ridicule these game designers with no ability for logic reasoning.

Relax, man. It's just a pen-and-paper dice game.

Quote from: Bren;807430Again you seem really stuck on your idea that spectres wander around creating more spectres. This is the idea that is causing your setting inconsistency. And the idea that a spectre would be created in a village only makes sense if you already assume spectres are wandering from village to village creating more spectres.

So don't assume that.

Assume they stay in their crypt or lair and they only turn the foolish characters who come and disturb their quiet contemplation. Now the villagers who know enough not to enter the tower of the Witchking are perfectly safe from the spectre. And the adventurers who come to loot the tower are in danger just like the rules (and the game) assumed.

Yeah, fair enough. I am just worried that some young and ambitious spectre tells the other spectres that it has chosen to become a wandering monster, and then at night goes to the village: Zap! Zap! Zap! Zap! Woooooooo! Zap! Zap! Zap! Zap!

Quote from: jibbajibba;807349Um... all you did there was changed the monsters to create a more coherent setting.
The OP is just pointing out that the RAW for D&D aren't consistent.
The two perspectives are not contradictory.

It is a little odd to just say that the game is inconsistent but that doesn't matter. Surely attempting to get a coherent game world is an aim for all games, even if its one that may be sacrificed on the altar of playability?

What the OP did was point out inconsistencies that dont really exist. Hes effectively made up some of these "problems" for BX on his own out of thin air.

There is nothing in the rules that say that Spectres have any desire to make more of themselves or are even evil. By the rules you can meet one that is friendly. Same for about all else in BX outside of the modules, and even there it is not allways clear-cut GvsE.

The rest is the same line of illogic. Therein lies the problem.

By the way. All the OP did was take the same tired old false arguments and replaced Werebear with Spectre and AD&D with BX.

Quote from: Omega;807522What the OP did was point out inconsistencies that dont really exist. Hes effectively made up some of these "problems" for BX on his own out of thin air.

There is nothing in the rules that say that Spectres have any desire to make more of themselves or are even evil. By the rules you can meet one that is friendly. Same for about all else in BX outside of the modules, and even there it is not allways clear-cut GvsE.

The rest is the same line of illogic. Therein lies the problem.

1) Spectres are listed as being chaotic, and according to page 55 of the (red) D&D Basic Players Manual: "Chaotic behavior is usually the same as behavior that could be called "evil"".

2) On page 5 of the same book (in the introductory adventure) we learn the following from Aleena the cleric: ""They're ghouls!" she whispers. "If one hits you, it could paralyze you! Ghouls are undead monsters, very nasty things; neither dead nor alive, but something horribly in between. We clerics have some power over these creatures of darkness. Follow me, and wish for luck." and later: "Ghouls are only one of the many kinds of undead monsters; there are also skeletons, zombies and much worse."

I take this as a lesson that undead can generally be considered evil, and indeed, when checking their alignments, they are all chaotic, except ghosts, which can have any alignment. I also have a hard time seeing the cleric's turn undead ability as anything but an expression of "good versus evil" or "God versus the Devil". This is supported in AD&D (2nd ed. Player's Manual page 103) where "evil priests are normally considered to be in league with undead creatures, or at least to share their aims and goals" such that they control undead instead of turning them.

So no, I do not think it is taken out of thin air that spectres are evil. They are chaotic, and they are undead. I am not saying it HAS to be that way always, but it is definitely not taken out of thin air. On the contrary I would say it is to be expected. Whether spectres desire to make more of themselves is less clear. The Expert Rules just state that: "A character slain by a spectre will rise the next night as a spectre under the control of the slayer". No desire on the part of the spectre is mentioned. Maybe it thinks: "Goddammit! Another intruder, and we are already crowded here. Grishnak, slay him, and tomorrow tell him to haunt the pissoir in the cellar".

Quote from: Omega;807524By the way. All the OP did was take the same tired old false arguments and replaced Werebear with Spectre and AD&D with BX.

That is not true. I started this thread looking for these arguments because I have not seen them before. If someone has given a werebear example, I would like to see that, if you can give me a reference.

Quote from: Arohtar;8075871) Spectres are listed as being chaotic, and according to page 55 of the (red) D&D Basic Players Manual: "Chaotic behavior is usually the same as behavior that could be called "evil"".

2) On page 5 of the same book (in the introductory adventure) we learn the following from Aleena the cleric: ""They're ghouls!" she whispers. "If one hits you, it could paralyze you! Ghouls are undead monsters, very nasty things; neither dead nor alive, but something horribly in between. We clerics have some power over these creatures of darkness. Follow me, and wish for luck." and later: "Ghouls are only one of the many kinds of undead monsters; there are also skeletons, zombies and much worse."

I take this as a lesson that undead can generally be considered evil, and indeed, when checking their alignments, they are all chaotic, except ghosts, which can have any alignment. I also have a hard time seeing the cleric's turn undead ability as anything but an expression of "good versus evil" or "God versus the Devil". This is supported in AD&D (2nd ed. Player's Manual page 103) where "evil priests are normally considered to be in league with undead creatures, or at least to share their aims and goals" such that they control undead instead of turning them.

So no, I do not think it is taken out of thin air that spectres are evil. They are chaotic, and they are undead. I am not saying it HAS to be that way always, but it definitely not taken out of thin air. I would say it is to be expected. Whether spectres desire to make more of themselves is less clear. The Expert Rules just state that: "A character slain by a spectre will rise the next night as a spectre under the control of the slayer". No desire on the part of the spectre is mentioned. Maybe it thinks: "Goddammit! Another intruder, and we are already crowded here. Grishnak, slay him, and tomorrow tell him to haunt the pissoir in the cellar".

1: It reads "evil" after paragraphs of describing "not evil".

2: Also has the PCs talking with, and not killing hobgoblins.

3: AD&D is not BX. Try again.

4: No. It is in no way expected when you can and will roll up friendly encounters with them. Your assumptions are a very fragile house of cards.

X1: I do though disagree with others that specters are tied to a location in BX. Theres nothing there that implies they are unless you count the module which is an extension of the rules. In which case sorry. The Wight in the crypt is just resting quietly till disturbed, and it has much the same entry as a spectre. In fact its got the door bolted to its crypt. Why isnt the wight wandering the place, er, wightying the cultists? and so on.

X2: In BX undead are VERY limited in scope. They only appear in swamps, deserts, and cities. By that then we can infer that there is something to those areas that repulses undead. Even those squirreled away in dungeons in those areas.

Quote from: Omega;8075971: It reads "evil" after paragraphs of describing "not evil".

No it doesn't. Where? Are you saying the Players Manual first describes chaotic as "not evil" and then in the following paragraph as "evil", thus contradicting itself?

Quote from: Omega;8075972: Also has the PCs talking with, and not killing hobgoblins.

And so what?

Quote from: Omega;8075973: AD&D is not BX. Try again.

My two other arguments are also sufficient. Their chaotic alignment and undead nature are both indications of evil. We can make exceptions, but they are exceptions. Or are you saying that people's prejudices against skeletons, zombies, wights, wraiths and vampires are also taken out of thin air? "Hello mr. zombie. How are you today?" Come on.

Quote from: Omega;8075974: No. It is in no way expected when you can and will roll up friendly encounters with them.

Using the monster reaction chart? Well, yes, using that chart you could have a "friendly" encounter with spectres. That would not imply however that spectres are nice fellows, just that they fear the party.

Quote from: Omega;807597X1: I do though disagree with others that specters are tied to a location in BX. Theres nothing there that implies they are unless you count the module which is an extension of the rules. In which case sorry. The Wight in the crypt is just resting quietly till disturbed, and it has much the same entry as a spectre. In fact its got the door bolted to its crypt. Why isnt the wight wandering the place, er, wightying the cultists? and so on.

Are you referring to module X1: The Isle of Dread?

Quote from: Omega;807597X2: In BX undead are VERY limited in scope. They only appear in swamps, deserts, and cities. By that then we can infer that there is something to those areas that repulses undead. Even those squirreled away in dungeons in those areas.

Well, yes. If we call that limited in scope. If we took the encounter tables seriously, 1 in every 96 city encounters would be with spectres. If the ordinary people of the city have such encounters too, don't we have a problem with spectres spreading?

I missed the part where "evil" = I want to take over the world.

Quote from: Bren;807606I missed the part where "evil" = I want to take over the world.

Who said there is such a part? Right now I am arguing against Omega's claim that: "There is nothing in the rules that say that Spectres [...] are even evil."

Quote from: Bren;807606I missed the part where "evil" = I want to take over the world.

It's on a different reaction table.

Quote from: Arohtar;807609Who said there is such a part? Right now I am arguing against Omega's claim that: "There is nothing in the rules that say that Spectres [...] are even evil."

You're trying to pee in his fond memories.

Quote from: Arohtar;807609Who said there is such a part?

Well you did in your earlier posts. Unless being evil implies that spectres want to take over the world it doesn't matter whether chaotic and evil are the same.

Quote from: Sommerjon;807617It's on a different reaction table.

Oh does that table include evil creatures all want to take over the world?

QuoteYou're trying to pee in his fond memories.

Not at all. I just get annoyed at people who think up ways to break systems or settings and then complain about them being broken.

If I make spectres want to take over the world then the setting doesn't make sense if it is a faux Medieval/Tolkien pastiche with D&D spectres in it.

Well no fucking duh.

Then either change the setting, change the rules on spectres turning creatures into spectres, or change your assumption that spectres want to turn the world into Land of the Spectres.

Quote from: Bren;807622Well you did in your earlier posts. Unless being evil implies that spectres want to take over the world it doesn't matter whether chaotic and evil are the same.

Being evil implies that spectres will slay humans they meet, so unless we can limit these meetings severely, spectres will in my opinion take over the world, even if they have no particular desire for it. Just as a wolf would take over the pen if put there with a bunch of sheep (even without the wolf thinking: "Hee! Hee! I am going to take over this pen"). They are just the stronger species. Every meeting between humans and spectres will in my opinion with a very high probability end with the humans getting slain and more spectres being created, and the spectres never even die (unless clerics destroy them).

Someone should do a serious study of the spectre versus human population dynamics.

Quote from: Arohtar;807631Being evil implies that spectres will slay humans they meet

Because evil creatures all wander the countryside slaying  every being they meet no matter what, right?

But if I make spectres wander the countryside slaying every human they meet then a faux Medieval/Tolkien pastiche with D&D spectres in it doesn't make sense.

Well no fucking duh. What did you think would happen when you decided to make spectres wander the countryside slaying every human they met?

It is really, really simple. Either change the setting so it isn't a faux-Medieval Tolkien pastiche, change the rules on spectres turning creatures into new spectres, or change your assumption that spectres wander the world killing everyone they meet.

Quote from: Bren;807635Well no fucking duh. What did you think would happen when you decided to make spectres wander the countryside slaying every human they met?

Then I think humans would become extinct, and only spectres would be left. That is the problem.

Quote from: Bren;807635It is really, really simple. Either change the setting so it isn't a faux-Medieval Tolkien pastiche, change the rules on spectres turning creatures into new spectres, or change your assumption that spectres wander the world killing everyone they meet.

Yes yes, we already discussed ways to fix it. I think we agree on those.

Quote from: Arohtar;807636Then I think humans would become extinct, and only spectres would be left. That is the problem.

It is a problem given all your assumptions. Humans and orcs and goblins and every other humanoid lifeform would become extinct. Unless the humanoids decided not to live in a faux-medieval Tolkien pastiche villages. Instead they would be living in giant fortresses warded by clerical barriers against evil and undead with food provided by hydroponic druid gardens and clerical create food spells. It sounds like some awful Judge Dread like setting, but I'm certain there are folks who would love the heck out of it.

Quote from: Arohtar;807636Then I think humans would become extinct, and only spectres would be left. That is the problem.


Yes yes, we already discussed ways to fix it. I think we agree on those.

I agree. The only thing that needs to be fixed is your assumption. Which makes it pretty obvious that the problem is not the rules defining the specter.

This thread would make Issek of the Jug cry uncle.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;807639The only thing that needs to be fixed is your assumption. Which makes it pretty obvious that the problem is not the rules defining the specter.

I think the rules should have provided an assumption ruling out my assumption.

Quote from: Arohtar;807641I think the rules should have provided an assumption ruling out my assumption.

Yes. We all got that. We just don't all agree with you.

Quote from: Bren;807638It is a problem given all your assumptions. Humans and orcs and goblins and every other humanoid lifeform would become extinct. Unless the humanoids decided not to live in a faux-medieval Tolkien pastiche villages. Instead they would be living in giant fortresses warded by clerical barriers against evil and undead with food provided by hydroponic druid gardens and clerical create food spells. It sounds like some awful Judge Dread like setting, but I'm certain there are folks who would love the heck out of it.

Exactly. Changing the setting to fit the rules would be another way of obtaining consistency. Quite an interesting one I think. In this case I think we agree that we do not like the result, so we will probably prefer to limit the spectre. But in other cases we might want to keep certain monsters, such as flying monsters, and then consider their implications for castle design for example. Or the implications of super-powerful individuals on war and politics.

I think the Known World (Mystara) was destroyed by the implications of high magic. It ended up as some comic-book superhero place with everybody flying around in flying ships throwing fireballs.

Quote from: Arohtar;807641I think the rules should have provided an assumption ruling out my assumption.

The D&D rules provide the assumption that a GM is going to craft their own setting, seeing as no setting is provided.

So isnt the responsibility of including spectres or not as you interpret them on your head?

And I still dont see how a spectre is going to take over the world killing one human at a time; sooner or later they'd encounter a cleric. OR someone with a magic weapon. Or a magic-user. Or travel so far away from their crypt they couldn't get back to it in time before daybreak.

Quote from: Arohtar;807641I think the rules should have provided an assumption ruling out my assumption.

My four year old will claim that something "was just broken" when the truth is that he  broke it himself. He actually knows the difference, so I would hope you do as well.

Games don't need rules to enforce common sense. Common sense indicates that if you introduce an assumption and the game breaks when it wasn't broken without that assumption then the conclusion is that your assumption broke the game, not that the game was broken.

If your assumption fails to meet the basic standards of common sense, then that says something about your assumption.

I'm stopping just short of calling stupid. But only by just an inch or so.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;807647My four year old will claim that something "was just broken" when the truth is that he  broke it himself. He actually knows the difference, so I would hope you do as well.

Games don't need rules to enforce common sense. Common sense indicates that if you introduce an assumption and the game breaks when it wasn't broken without that assumption then the conclusion is that your assumption broke the game, not that the game was broken.

If your assumption fails to meet the basic standards of common sense, then that says something about your assumption.

I'm stopping just short of calling stupid. But only by just an inch or so.

I think a good game should "enforce common sense". A game where you need to add and change rules yourself to keep it from producing ridiculous results is not a good game in my opinion.

Otherwise the game designers can publish whatever they want, and you can accuse the gamers of making "assumptions" and not using their common sense when the ridiculous results show up.

Quote from: Arohtar;807649I think a good game should "enforce common sense". A game where you need to add and change rules yourself to keep it from producing ridiculous results is not a good game in my opinion.

Otherwise the game designers can publish whatever they want, and you can accuse the gamers of making "assumptions" and not using their common sense when the ridiculous results show up.

So play 4th edition.


You wont ever have to worry about having to think or make judgements based on common sense.

Quote from: TristramEvans;807646The D&D rules provide the assumption that a GM is going to craft their own setting, seeing as no setting is provided.

So isnt the responsibility of including spectres or not as you interpret them on your head?

Dear gaming gods yes.

QuoteAnd I still dont see how a spectre is going to take over the world killing one human at a time; sooner or later they'd encounter a cleric. OR someone with a magic weapon. Or a magic-user. Or travel so far away from their crypt they couldn't get back to it in time before daybreak.

It's the implications of any ponzi scheme. Each new spectre is assumed to also wander the world creating new spectres. Eventually all you have left in the world are spectres leading to the dull gaming world of Undead: The Undying.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;807647Games don't need rules to enforce common sense. Common sense indicates that if you introduce an assumption and the game breaks when it wasn't broken without that assumption then the conclusion is that your assumption broke the game, not that the game was broken.

By all the gods of gaming, yes!

Quote from: Arohtar;807649I think a good game should "enforce common sense". A game where you need to add and change rules yourself to keep it from producing ridiculous results is not a good game in my opinion.

But you didn't need to change or add rules to what was in the game to keep it from producing ridiculous results. You just needed to stop adding your ideas about what spectres are like. Your ideas are what made it ridiculous.

Game designers can't prevent DMs from cooking up ridiculous stuff. And Gygax and Arneson didn't even want to try to prevent DMs from cooking up new stuff, ridiculous or otherwise.

Quote from: TristramEvans;807646The D&D rules provide the assumption that a GM is going to craft their own setting, seeing as no setting is provided.

So isnt the responsibility of including spectres or not as you interpret them on your head?

Yes, everything is ultimately the DM's responsibility. However I think it is fair to criticize games where things need to be changed to make them reasonable. The mighty spectre is not a huge crime in my opinion. If you read my original post, it was just an example.

Quote from: TristramEvans;807646And I still dont see how a spectre is going to take over the world killing one human at a time; sooner or later they'd encounter a cleric. OR someone with a magic weapon. Or a magic-user. Or travel so far away from their crypt they couldn't get back to it in time before daybreak.

Yes, but how many worthy adversaries are there in the population? Even if you have a magical weapon, a spectre is fearsome (AC 2; HD 6; D 1d8 + double energy drain). If we say the frequency of worthy adversaries is 1/1000, then each spectre would (on average) have multiplied into an army of 1000 spectres when it met that worthy adversary, making the job somewhat harder for him. (The guy with the magical sword would definitely have a problem).

There is no crypt or daylight rules in the D&D Expert set (now someone will attack me for "assuming" there is not). The description of the monster is really brief; here it comes:

"The ghostly spectres are among the mightiest of the undead. They have no solid bodies, and can only be hit by magical weapons; silver weapons have no effect. Like all undead, spectres are immune to sleep, charm, and hold spells.

A hit by a spectre does 1-8 points of damage in addition to double Energy Drain (lose 2 levels, as explained in D&D Basic). A character slain by a spectre will rise the next night as a spectre under the control of the slayer."

Quote from: Bren;807655But you didn't need to change or add rules to what was in the game to keep it from producing ridiculous results.

Yes, I did. Without changing the rules, I could make the game produce ridiculous results. I needed to add rules to keep it from doing that.

Quote from: Bren;807655You just needed to stop adding your ideas about what spectres are like. Your ideas are what made it ridiculous.

I think up a scenario which is perfectly possible within the rules (and in my opinion even quite reasonable), and then suddenly I have broken the game, and I am an idiot. Does this rule also apply to players? Do they also need to show restraint in their ideas so as not to break the game?

Quote from: Arohtar;807664Yes, I did. Without changing the rules, I could make the game produce ridiculous results. I needed to add rules to keep it from doing that.


I think up a scenario which is perfectly possible within the rules (and in my opinion even quite reasonable), and then suddenly I have broken the game, and I am an idiot. Does this rule also apply to players? Do they also need to show restraint in their ideas so as not to break the game?

You added to the game by ascribing a motivation and behavior to the specters that's weren't in the rules, and the thing you added broke the game (in your estimation).

Despite 20 plus pages where legions of people have explained to you the error in your "logic", with incredible patience I might add, you do nothing but double down on a stupid premise.

Here's the solution to *your* problem. Before you open any gaming book, close your eyes and imagine the following disclaimer:

"If you care about this game's internal consistency, don't add assumptions that would break the consistency."  QED

Good luck in your gaming endeavors.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;807667You added to the game by ascribing a motivation and behavior to the specters that's weren't in the rules, and the thing you added broke the game (in your estimation).

Despite 20 plus pages where legions of people have explained to you the error in your "logic", with incredible patience I might add, you do nothing but double down on a stupid premise.

Here's the solution to *your* problem. Before you open any gaming book, close your eyes and imagine the following disclaimer:

"If you care about this game's internal consistency, don't add assumptions that would break the consistency."  QED

Good luck in your gaming endeavors.

I have not "added" anything by assuming that a chaotic monster will wander around killing people when nothing is mentioned preventing it from doing that. It is you that need to add some restraints on that monster (as has also been done in other versions of D&D).

What if every thief of level 10 or higher could kill any living creature with a snap of his fingers according to the rules? Have I then also "added" a stupid assumption by assuming that some thief actually did that? Of course not.

Yeah yeah, just disclaim your way out of it.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;807667You added to the game by ascribing a motivation and behavior to the specters that's weren't in the rules, and the thing you added broke the game (in your estimation).

Despite 20 plus pages where legions of people have explained to you the error in your "logic", with incredible patience I might add, you do nothing but double down on a stupid premise.

Here's the solution to *your* problem. Before you open any gaming book, close your eyes and imagine the following disclaimer:

"If you care about this game's internal consistency, don't add assumptions that would break the consistency."  QED

Good luck in your gaming endeavors.

Couldn't have said it better myself despite repeatedly trying.

And speaking of being repeatedly trying... ...I think we are done here.

Quote from: Bren;807678I think we are done here.

Speak for yourself.

In 20 pages of posts I don't know if someone already mentioned this, and I'm making an assumption that D&D also had this AD&D rule, but:

A spectre isn't "just hit by magical weapons".  It's hit by any monster over a certain number of hit dice.  4+1 hit dice, IIRC.  So every ogre with a club is a threat to the spectre.  4+1 and up monsters vastly outnumber spectres.  I don't see any issues with spectres being kept in check.  Since as described in the rules they are humanoid, I think it's very reasonable to assume that without some sort of soul, something can't be made into a spectre.  So the spectre would face combat that could kill it if it simply wandered all over and had to fight monsters that attacked it, with no additional powers gained through creation of slave spectres if it did win some of those combats.

Spectres are intelligent.  They want to hold on to their unlife.  So they don't risk themselves for no reason.

Other rules within the rules could address your other concerns, but I don't feel the need to spent any more of my time addressing someone who basically says "fix a problem I think I found - let's all pile on a simple game meant to create fun for a group of people! Rawr!!!!"

If you want to immerse yourself in a consistent world that makes sense, give up gaming and immerse yourself in the world around you.  Clearly this shit is too important to you in the grand scheme of things if you need it to be as perfect as you do.

It gets even better. Hes not even arguing from the claimed BX. Hes refferencing BECMI. In which case theres one unified reason why none of those problems happen.

Immortals.

And BECMI also spells out first that Chaotic is not evil. Then finishes with "Chaotic behavior is usually the same behavior as could be called "evil". Which contradicts everything that was just said. Then contradicts itself again in the following example where a chaotic character battle the monsters or might run away. Nothing about EEEEEEVIL. Part of the problem right there.

And the BECMI Spectre is pretty much cut-n-paste from BX and still doesnt say anything about it being evil or wanting to undeadify the world. Again. It is just there. Its Chaotic and by the rules themselves chaotic is not inherintly evil.

Then again, wrapping your brain around the fucked up convoluted presentation of BECMI could cause sanity loss. So that may explain the OPs fixation on imaginary problems.

Quote from: Bren;807655It's the implications of any ponzi scheme. Each new spectre is assumed to also wander the world creating new spectres. Eventually all you have left in the world are spectres leading to the dull gaming world of Undead: The Undying.

Actually, that could be a kind of cool setting. Think: humanity has all but been wiped out by Spectres. The few pockets of tribes left can only venture out by day, at night they must huddle deep within rune-protected crypts underground as they hear the wails of the undead fill the outside world. Its sort of an "I am Legend" apocalypse fantasy scenario.

Quote from: TristramEvans;807708Actually, that could be a kind of cool setting. Think: humanity has all but been wiped out by Spectres. The few pockets of tribes left can only venture out by day, at night they must huddle deep within rune-protected crypts underground as they hear the wails of the undead fill the outside world. Its sort of an "I am Legend" apocalypse fantasy scenario.

Or like the views we have of the future in Terminator 1 and 2. Small pockets of humanity holing up underground as they try to hold out against the Terminators.

For Spectre World aka Undead: The Undying you'd have to add the weakness that the spectres and other undead can't go out in sunlight. I do like your idea of the wails of the undead beginning at sun set.

Not sure I'd want to play that game long term, but it could be a really cool short campaign or an alternate world (or some version of Hades) that the PCs have to go to for some reason - e.g. find a magical dingus or rescue someone important who has been trapped or imprisoned on Spectre World.

They made up some shit they thought would be fun.

In case of conflict, "fun game to play" trumps "building a fantasy world" hands down.

Quote from: Old Geezer;807711They made up some shit they thought would be fun.

In case of conflict, "fun game to play" trumps "building a fantasy world" hands down.

Says the man who put a McDonalds in his dungeon. :p

Quote from: EOTB;807682In 20 pages of posts I don't know if someone already mentioned this, and I'm making an assumption that D&D also had this AD&D rule, but:

A spectre isn't "just hit by magical weapons".  It's hit by any monster over a certain number of hit dice.  4+1 hit dice, IIRC.  So every ogre with a club is a threat to the spectre.  4+1 and up monsters vastly outnumber spectres.  I don't see any issues with spectres being kept in check.  Since as described in the rules they are humanoid, I think it's very reasonable to assume that without some sort of soul, something can't be made into a spectre.  So the spectre would face combat that could kill it if it simply wandered all over and had to fight monsters that attacked it, with no additional powers gained through creation of slave spectres if it did win some of those combats.

Spectres are intelligent.  They want to hold on to their unlife.  So they don't risk themselves for no reason.

Other rules within the rules could address your other concerns, but I don't feel the need to spent any more of my time addressing someone who basically says "fix a problem I think I found - let's all pile on a simple game meant to create fun for a group of people! Rawr!!!!"

If you want to immerse yourself in a consistent world that makes sense, give up gaming and immerse yourself in the world around you.  Clearly this shit is too important to you in the grand scheme of things if you need it to be as perfect as you do.

Good point about 4+1 HD monsters being able to hit spectres. I know the rule from AD&D, and I was actually looking for it in D&D. I could not find it, but maybe I did not look thoroughly enough.

With its fast flying rate is should be easy for the spectre to avoid combat or break contact if it wants to, so our only hope is that its high morale rating of 11 (anger? arrogance?) makes it fight to the death against too powerful monster enemies.

I primarily ask for examples of fantasy world inconsistencies, not fixes. I am not demanding that anybody "fix a problem I think I found". I would like to hear about fantasy world inconsistencies such that if I was to create a fantasy world in the future, I could try to avoid those. Hence, to hear examples of what players had been thinking was actually quite ridiculous and which destroyed the feeling of reality. Both to pile on the game to air some frustration, but also to improve the game.

Most replies have been protests that I even dare to ask for examples of inconsistencies, and reasons why I should not be asking (both are actually off  topic):

* Don't complain. Just fix it by yourself.
* Inconsistencies are not a problem.
* Play something else or not at all.

Quote from: Arohtar;807742I primarily ask for examples of fantasy world inconsistencies, not fixes. .

You asked for "fantasy world" inconsistencies, and gave as an example something from a system with no set world. People offered fixes under the assumption this was actually a problem you were having, but I don't think you actually have any gaming problem, you're just looking for reasons to criticize one edition of a game from 30 years ago. A game that, once again, does not have a setting, and thus does not fall under the premise of "fantasy world inconsistencies". For what reason, I cannot imagine. I mean if you're just trolling, which seems incredibly likely at this point, you've chosen a bizarre manner. (shrug)

If you want to talk about fantasy world inconsistencies, chose a fantasy world. Up until now you've not mentioned one fantasy world inconsistency.

If you want to avoid inconsistencies in the future, as you claim is your motivation, then drop all the talk about a game with no setting.

Quote from: TristramEvans;807708Actually, that could be a kind of cool setting. Think: humanity has all but been wiped out by Spectres. The few pockets of tribes left can only venture out by day, at night they must huddle deep within rune-protected crypts underground as they hear the wails of the undead fill the outside world. Its sort of an "I am Legend" apocalypse fantasy scenario.

Quote from: Bren;807710Not sure I'd want to play that game long term

Agree. Nice images.

Quote from: TristramEvans;807744You asked for "fantasy world" inconsistencies, and gave as an example something from a system with no set world. People offered fixes under the assumption this was actually a problem you were having, but I don't think you actually have any gaming problem, you're just looking for reasons to criticize one edition of a game from 30 years ago. A game that, once again, does not have a setting, and thus does not fall under the premise of "fantasy world inconsistencies". For what reason, I cannot imagine. I mean if you're just trolling, which seems incredibly likely at this point, you've chosen a bizarre manner. (shrug)

If you want to talk about fantasy world inconsistencies, chose a fantasy world. Up until now you've not mentioned one fantasy world inconsistency.

If you want to avoid inconsistencies in the future, as you claim is your motivation, then drop all the talk about a game with no setting.

The Basic/Expert and so on game actually included a setting. The Expert Rules contained a map of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, and on p. 38-40 there was a description. The setting was expanded in the modules. That is the setting I am thinking of. I imagine that any inconsistency with that setting would also be an inconsistency with most other settings, since I imagine most settings are quite similar (a Tolkien inspired medieval world with a Gold Dragon Inn, elves, dwarves etc.).

People are welcome to mention inconsistencies experienced in whatever setting they were in and under whatever rules. The spectre example was just an example I remember from the times when I worked with the Expert Rules and the Known World (= the setting introduced in the Expert Rules = the Grand Duchy of Karameikos etc.).

Quote from: Omega;807694It gets even better. Hes not even arguing from the claimed BX. Hes refferencing BECMI.

I thought you meant Basic and Expert (the red and the blue boxed sets) with your "BX". Maybe if you limited your use of smart ass abbreviations it would be easier to communicate. Where do I "claim BX"? In our alignment discussion I refer to "page 55 of the (red) D&D Basic Players Manual". With that I mean the Players Manual in the (red) Basic Set that was followed by the (blue) Expert set, i.e. what you call BECMI, yes.

Damn...sorry I missed this thread.

All these are simple rule/setting incongruities.
Back to the same answer.

http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/60581028/Vreegs%20Rules%20of%20Setting%20and%20Game%20Design

Vreeg's first Rule of Setting Design,
"Make sure the ruleset you are using matches the setting and game you want to play, because the setting and game WILL eventually match the system."

Quote from: LordVreeg;807749Damn...sorry I missed this thread.

All these are simple rule/setting incongruities.
Back to the same answer.

http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/60581028/Vreegs%20Rules%20of%20Setting%20and%20Game%20Design

Vreeg's first Rule of Setting Design,
"Make sure the ruleset you are using matches the setting and game you want to play, because the setting and game WILL eventually match the system."

Good rule. I could not agree more. I have saved a copy of your axioms and corollaries for future reference and consideration.

I really enjoyed reading your "rationale behind the rules" (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/52193047/Original%20Rationale%20Behind%20the%20Rules) by the way. I think those four issues you deal with are very important, and you have even found solutions. Your rules sound better than what TSR and Wizards of the Coast have managed to pull off during the last 30 years. I have tried something in the same direction myself (letting AC represent only avoidance and Armor Value represent protection, revised damage statistics for the weapons; the resulting endless hacking seemed all right for armored fighters, but the unarmored ones still had the war horse problem and the axe problem), but I got nowhere as far as you. If I was to play again, I think I would use the Pendragon rules extended with some sort of magic. Maybe inspired by yours (which I will look at). It sounds like you can even throw "levels" out the window pretty soon, it's all about skills anyway. I also like the introduction to the setting (a place so big that nobody knows where it ends, with isolated patches of civilization and humanoids in between). Great.

Quote from: Arohtar;807747I thought you meant Basic and Expert (the red and the blue boxed sets) with your "BX". Maybe if you limited your use of smart ass abbreviations it would be easier to communicate. Where do I "claim BX"? In our alignment discussion I refer to "page 55 of the (red) D&D Basic Players Manual". With that I mean the Players Manual in the (red) Basic Set that was followed by the (blue) Expert set, i.e. what you call BECMI, yes.

And the arguments still stand. All your inconsistencies are just things YOU have made up. Things that do not exist in the game or the setting. Things that litterally cannot exist in the setting because Mystarra is heavily overseen by the Immortals.

Quote from: Omega;807752And the arguments still stand. All your inconsistencies are just things YOU have made up. Things that do not exist in the game or the setting. Things that litterally cannot exist in the setting because Mystarra is heavily overseen by the Immortals.

Agreed, you could have the Immortals be the ones that upheld an otherwise unstable setting. I don't like that solution though, see post #42, but I agree it could be used as an explanation.

Quote from: Bren;807712Says the man who put a McDonalds in his dungeon. :p

Adventurers gotta eat and a steady diet of preserved rations get old fast. There's an untapped market!

Quote from: Nexus;807765Adventurers gotta eat and a steady diet of preserved rations get old fast. There's an untapped market!

And someone has to clean up all those dead goblins and orcs.

Now I am thinking of competing franchise: Dark Castle.

Their troll burgers are quite the hit. Keep a troll leg in the back, hack off a chunk, grill it up, and serve. Infinite meat supply. Stomach acid is sufficient to digest the troll patty. Any stories of baby trolls clawing their way out of customer's stomachs are just vicious rumors started by our competitors.


Huh, I wonder what made me think of troll burgers?

Quote from: Nexus;807765Adventurers gotta eat and a steady diet of preserved rations get old fast. There's an untapped market!

Ha ha ha! That's actually quite a funny joke. McDonald's opening a restaurant in a busy dungeon intersection. Imagine the look on the adventurers' faces.

Quote from: Arohtar;807754Agreed, you could have the Immortals be the ones that upheld an otherwise unstable setting. I don't like that solution though, see post #42, but I agree it could be used as an explanation.

That you do not like the solution is totally irrelevant. That is how it is written in the rules for BECMI D&D and the Mystarra setting.

Now for some real inconsistencies in BECMI

Chaos is selfish. Chaos respects luck. Chaos is Evil, etc. In three paragraphs they totally contradict themselves. (two paragraphs being from BX.)

The planet is a Megalith, its alive with a molten core and kills off all life on itself every XYZ years or so and youve got about 5000-500k years left. But no its not. The planet is hollow and not alive at all.

And so on.

Quote from: Omega;807778Chaos is selfish. Chaos respects luck. Chaos is Evil, etc. In three paragraphs they totally contradict themselves. (two paragraphs being from BX.)

If a game wants a Law/Chaos dichotomy I prefer the original Moorcockian view.

Law = order and stabilty; the needs of the many outweight the needs of the one; extreme Law results is ossified, unchanging stasis with no opportunity for growth.

Chaos = change and creativity; the needs of the one outweight the needs of the many; connecting it to luck and chance is good too; extreme Chaos results in an amorphous soup of constant and meaningless change solely for the sake of change.

Quote from: Omega;807778That you do not like the solution is totally irrelevant. That is how it is written in the rules for BECMI D&D and the Mystarra setting.

Now for some real inconsistencies in BECMI

Chaos is selfish. Chaos respects luck. Chaos is Evil, etc. In three paragraphs they totally contradict themselves. (two paragraphs being from BX.)

The planet is a Megalith, its alive with a molten core and kills off all life on itself every XYZ years or so and youve got about 5000-500k years left. But no its not. The planet is hollow and not alive at all.

And so on.

If you are right, that explains why the Known World was drowned under a shitload of deus ex machina.

http://www.superdan.net/gaming/grtdnd/grtdnd1.html

I did not know about the megalith theory, but yes, Mystara is a nightmare. Already 20 years ago when we started a game, we agreed that we would "play without the Gazetteers".

Quote from: Bren;807430Again you seem really stuck on your idea that spectres wander around creating more spectres. This is the idea that is causing your setting inconsistency. And the idea that a spectre would be created in a village only makes sense if you already assume spectres are wandering from village to village creating more spectres.

So don't assume that.

Assume they stay in their crypt or lair and they only turn the foolish characters who come and disturb their quiet contemplation. Now the villagers who know enough not to enter the tower of the Witchking are perfectly safe from the spectre. And the adventurers who come to loot the tower are in danger just like the rules (and the game) assumed.

Bingo! WHERE did that fellow get the notion in the first place? It's not specified in the monster entry (whereas the MM entry directly specifies that it's not the case). Is it borrowed from some novel or such?

If we're just going to go out of our way to be stupid and post every hypothetical inconsistent fantasy world we come up with, then I don't see the point. Even if it's not a previously published example, there ought to be some reason for it to stand out as interesting.

The primary concern of a game setting isn't how the things in that setting interact with each other, it's how the things in that setting interact with PCs.  Period.  Realism and "consistency" are secondary, way secondary, to playability and, of course, GM-ability.

Some undead make more undead?  Great.  That doesn't mean the setting is crawling with undead because reasonably speaking X number of undead would spawn Y number of new undead until Z number of people were turned and blah blah blah.  It means the PCs need to go stop some fucking undead, because the local village is in danger and it's the cleric's time to shine.  Why?  Because it's a game about heroic player characters doing heroic player character stuff, and undead exist only as a thing for the PCs to go do shit against.

Dragons should be on top of the food chain?  Yeah.  That doesn't mean they completely dominate every default setting and humans huddle in fear of them because blah blah blah.  It means they're end bosses, great big fat bundles of fear and fire and hit points and XP and loot.  Why?  Because good guys in fantasy literature go fight, and/or steal from, dragons.  

Every fantasy village contains some farmhouses and an inn?  Yeah.  That's got nothing at all to do with "realistic" travel rates across long distances (which, btw, aren't what most people think they were, anyways, not that realism has anything to do with D&D settings, not that every D&D setting is based on Western Europe, and on and on).  They have an inn because that village only exists at all so that your PCs can wander into it, rest up to heal from their dungeon crawl, and then head off on their next adventure (which is also why there's a general store and probably a temple with magical healing).

Which was the point I was trying to make when I challenged the OP to create a gaming-centric universe that fit his (narrow, laughable) definition of "consistent."  You can't.  You shouldn't.  Consistency isn't what's important, realism isn't what's important.  Playability is what's important.  To some people verisimilitude adds to the playability of a setting, and I agree, that's great, but I'm strongly of the opinion that it should always take second place to keeping PCs in the spotlight and making it as easy as possible for the GM to make that happen.

Monster Manuals only exist as things for players to run into, after all, and settings exist first and foremost as places to run games.  That's why these things were written in the first place, period.  Treat them, and critique them, accordingly.

While only tangentially related to spectres, you'd think cremation would be the main way to dispose of the dead, instead of cemeteries or catacombs or tombs given that undead exist and animate dead isn't that high level.

Quote from: JeremyR;807947While only tangentially related to spectres, you'd think cremation would be the main way to dispose of the dead, instead of cemeteries or catacombs or tombs given that undead exist and animate dead isn't that high level.

Don't be ridiculous animate dead only exists as a spell so that enemies of the PCs, and a certain set of PCs, can use it as a spell to create more HP and loot bundles for the PCs to slay, or to slow down the HP Loot Bundles the PCs are currently trying to kill.

There is no existence in the fictional world beyond the interface between the PC and the current room they are in. NPCs do nothing whist not in sight of the PCs and the DM should create whole cloth whatever they have been up to as befits the most fun and the most opportunity for HP loot bundles when they next appear.

Oh and Spectres always stay in their lairs so this is all bollocks, unless they are encountered as wandering monsters as wandering monsters are old school and thus acceptable but any other idea about anything from AD&D or earlier editions is in any way problematic or causes the players to think this doesn't make any sense, like 1000 year old elves who are naturally magical but who can't cast spells over 5th level ever... or entire races who can't have their own priests etc is just bitching cos the game is perfect and if you don't like it go and play fucking DitV you postmodern, SJW, forgist, Swine wanker ... etc ... etc .... etc ....

BX/BECMI spectres dont even have tombs.
Here is the BECMI entry that the OP is so fixated on that tells us all about Spectres wanting to float fourth and spectreize the world.

QuoteThe ghostly spectres are among the mightiest of the undead. They have no solid bodies, and can only be hit by magical weapons; silver weapons have no effect. Like all undead, spectres are immune to sleep, charm, and hold spells.
A hit by a spectre does 1-8 points of damage in addition to a double Energy
Drain (lose 2 levels, as explained in D&D Basic). A character slain by a spectre will rise the next night as a spectre under the control of the slayer.

Quote from: Omega;807956BX/BECMI spectres dont even have tombs.
Here is the BECMI entry that the OP is so fixated on that tells us all about Spectres wanting to float fourth and spectreize the world.

The entry doesn't say that they don't have tombs.

Clearly the entry does not give full parameters to use spectres in the game world (nothing on their appearance or habitat), let alone to drop them into as a self-contained module in world simulation.

Equally clearly, the entry is a minimalistic note in the old school wargamey way for the DM to breathe (un)life into.

Not so hard to grasp.

Quote from: Critias;807943The primary concern of a game setting isn't how the things in that setting interact with each other, it's how the things in that setting interact with PCs.  Period.  Realism and "consistency" are secondary, way secondary, to playability and, of course, GM-ability.

Some undead make more undead?  Great.  That doesn't mean the setting is crawling with undead because reasonably speaking X number of undead would spawn Y number of new undead until Z number of people were turned and blah blah blah.  It means the PCs need to go stop some fucking undead, because the local village is in danger and it's the cleric's time to shine.  Why?  Because it's a game about heroic player characters doing heroic player character stuff, and undead exist only as a thing for the PCs to go do shit against.

Dragons should be on top of the food chain?  Yeah.  That doesn't mean they completely dominate every default setting and humans huddle in fear of them because blah blah blah.  It means they're end bosses, great big fat bundles of fear and fire and hit points and XP and loot.  Why?  Because good guys in fantasy literature go fight, and/or steal from, dragons.  

Every fantasy village contains some farmhouses and an inn?  Yeah.  That's got nothing at all to do with "realistic" travel rates across long distances (which, btw, aren't what most people think they were, anyways, not that realism has anything to do with D&D settings, not that every D&D setting is based on Western Europe, and on and on).  They have an inn because that village only exists at all so that your PCs can wander into it, rest up to heal from their dungeon crawl, and then head off on their next adventure (which is also why there's a general store and probably a temple with magical healing).

Which was the point I was trying to make when I challenged the OP to create a gaming-centric universe that fit his (narrow, laughable) definition of "consistent."  You can't.  You shouldn't.  Consistency isn't what's important, realism isn't what's important.  Playability is what's important.  To some people verisimilitude adds to the playability of a setting, and I agree, that's great, but I'm strongly of the opinion that it should always take second place to keeping PCs in the spotlight and making it as easy as possible for the GM to make that happen.

Monster Manuals only exist as things for players to run into, after all, and settings exist first and foremost as places to run games.  That's why these things were written in the first place, period.  Treat them, and critique them, accordingly.

You know, it's not a bad position to come from.
It's kind of a the 'the fun comes first' attitude, which I respect.  

Nor do I disagree that the game is about the player character's interaction with the setting before anything else.

First Corrollary of the Third Rule
"It is the interesting task of the GM to create a feel in the world that everything, every event-chain,  is happening around the PCs without the least concern whether the PCs join or not, while in reality making sure the game and these event chains are actually predicated on PC volition.  The setting consistency should never be compromised, and a good GM should be able to keep both setting and PC needs logical at the same time "

My hackles did rise a bit later, but I think it may be semantics.   I will let this piece from the same place speak for me.  I do think that playability and fun are first...but if you want to create a long term game where adults stay in it and want to solve issues and work within the setting, it needs to be more immersive.  


 First Corollary to the Second Rule
"Immersion is is never perfect, but for your players to actually play a role, a design imperative must be to create a setting where the logic of the setting is complete enough to allow the player to see it, feel it, count on it enough to think, as much as possible, from the perspective of the player.
Your setting and system match succeed at the level they create a suspension of disbelief and as the level they allow for 'in character' thinking.  Every lack of consistency and internal logic is an obstacle to this suspension of disbelief."

Again, fun comes first.  There are many games that don't last long, or are gonzo-based, or have a scope that allows the backdrop to be immaterial.  But I personally don't ever minimize the effects of verisimilitude.  But my games do just....go on and on.

Quote from: The_Shadow;808014The entry doesn't say that they don't have tombs.

Clearly the entry does not give full parameters to use spectres in the game world (nothing on their appearance or habitat), let alone to drop them into as a self-contained module in world simulation.

Equally clearly, the entry is a minimalistic note in the old school wargamey way for the DM to breathe (un)life into.

Not so hard to grasp.

No. The entry doesnt say anything about what spectres do or dont to. All of that is left to the DM to decide. Just like BX and to a much lesser degree BECMI does with the setting itself. Heres the Known World and a sentence or two about the kingdoms. The rest? Thats totally up to you to flesh out. Same with the monsters. The entry doesnt even mention weakness to sunlight!

Spectres bent on spectreizing everyone?
Tomb dwelling Spectres that dont like visitors?
Roaming Spectres that might be rather nice folk looking to help out?
No Spectres at all?

Whatever the DM wants them to be.

Quote from: Omega;808095No. The entry doesnt say anything about what spectres do or dont to. All of that is left to the DM to decide. Just like BX and to a much lesser degree BECMI does with the setting itself. Heres the Known World and a sentence or two about the kingdoms. The rest? Thats totally up to you to flesh out. Same with the monsters. The entry doesnt even mention weakness to sunlight!

Spectres bent on spectreizing everyone?
Tomb dwelling Spectres that dont like visitors?
Roaming Spectres that might be rather nice folk looking to help out?
No Spectres at all?

Whatever the DM wants them to be.

old School D&D : empowering Spectres and breaking down living/undead prejudices and stereotypes.

Quote from: Critias;807943Which was the point I was trying to make when I challenged the OP to create a gaming-centric universe that fit his (narrow, laughable) definition of "consistent."  You can't.  You shouldn't.  Consistency isn't what's important, realism isn't what's important.  Playability is what's important.  To some people verisimilitude adds to the playability of a setting, and I agree, that's great, but I'm strongly of the opinion that it should always take second place to keeping PCs in the spotlight and making it as easy as possible for the GM to make that happen.

Playability is subjective based on what you enjoy in your games. For a player who enjoys low-consistency gonzo adventure, pushing more consistency may reduce playability. However, for a player who enjoys high consistency, then more consistency will most likely add to playability.

Personally, I have enjoyed many high-detail, high-consistency settings - like Harn and Middle Earth as well as many historical (or alternate-history) settings.

It's perfectly reasonable to enjoy low-consistency settings, too. But it's a matter of taste, not an absolute.

Quote from: Omega;808095No. The entry doesnt say anything about what spectres do or dont to. All of that is left to the DM to decide. Just like BX and to a much lesser degree BECMI does with the setting itself. Heres the Known World and a sentence or two about the kingdoms. The rest? Thats totally up to you to flesh out. Same with the monsters. The entry doesnt even mention weakness to sunlight!

Spectres bent on spectreizing everyone?
Tomb dwelling Spectres that dont like visitors?
Roaming Spectres that might be rather nice folk looking to help out?
No Spectres at all?

Whatever the DM wants them to be.

So you agreed with me but prefaced your post with the Reddit-sentence "No"? That's odd.

Quote from: TristramEvans;808097old School D&D : empowering Spectres and breaking down living/undead prejudices and stereotypes.

So begins Spectregate.

Don't call them spooks. That THEIR word!
   -#Spectregate

Quote from: Bren;807767And someone has to clean up all those dead goblins and orcs.

Now I am thinking of competing franchise: Dark Castle.

Their troll burgers are quite the hit. Keep a troll leg in the back, hack off a chunk, grill it up, and serve. Infinite meat supply. Stomach acid is sufficient to digest the troll patty. Any stories of baby trolls clawing their way out of customer's stomachs are just vicious rumors started by our competitors.


Huh, I wonder what made me think of troll burgers?

There's an epic fantasy series in this somewhere...

"Onion Ring to rule them all, Onion ring to find them, Onion ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!"

Quote from: Nexus;808214There's an epic fantasy series in this somewhere...

"Onion Ring to rule them all, Onion ring to find them, Onion ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!"

It is said that you gotta pay to play. And one day Nexus, one day you shall pay for that play on words. ;)

Quote from: jhkim;808158It's perfectly reasonable to enjoy low-consistency settings, too. But it's a matter of taste, not an absolute.

I'm not saying consistency doesn't matter at all, or that liking it is wrong.  I write for the game with the 25 year metaplot/setting, after all.  I dig metaplot.  I dig setting stuff.  I really, really, do.

It's just that when I'm in the middle of conversations or email threads about that, and folks are talking about the next big crisis or metaplot shake-up, I try to be the guy constantly doing the "Okay, but what about the players?" thing.  Immortal dragons are duking it out with megacorps and the nature of global electronics is changing and so-and-so got elected in nation-state such-and-such and on and on and on, and telling that story about the setting is always awesome, sure...but first and foremost, it's important to remember that we're writing a game book, so everything we say has to add to the game somehow.  It should be a plot hook, we should publish a tie-in adventure, there needs to be room for a GM to take a cool thing and run with it, it shouldn't just be a self-contained cool thing all by itself.

Ultimately, everything in an RPG should somehow further the game.  And if a line of fluff in a sourcebook is going to ruin someone's fun or it means a GM and their players can't tell a kick-ass story, then screw that line of fluff;  their game comes first.

When in doubt, playability trumps.

A lot of GMs are frustrated novelists who play rpgs as a means to "explore" a narrative. The players are just there as an excuse to show off. I only met one of those types in about 20 years of gaming, but recently there seem to be way more.

Somewhat related, this is probably why adventuring in Middle Earth is so damn difficult...the game part tends to take a backseat to the environment, even when you're trying not to.

Quote from: Critias;808235Ultimately, everything in an RPG should somehow further the game.  And if a line of fluff in a sourcebook is going to ruin someone's fun or it means a GM and their players can't tell a kick-ass story, then screw that line of fluff;  their game comes first.

When in doubt, playability trumps.

The thing that supremely bugs me is when someone demands a change that ruins my fun as a player, and claims that it is necessary for playability.

In my experience, my fun is often ruined by attempts by the GM and/or module writer to "tell a kick-ass story".  They are attempting to provide fun, but they are doing so in a way that comes across to me as dull and contrived. In particular, inconsistencies tend to prevent my being able to reason with the setting and come up with creative insights and/or plans.

I guess this is one of those places that being a good GM is more than running the game.

Also, you have to be willing to be upfront about the game you are going to run.  I'm one of those novelists, frustrated or otherwise.  I wrote a lot of earlier settings, but my main setting started back in 83, and has been added to constantly ever since.  We started a Wiki for it maybe five years ago, maybe six, but the wiki is now well over 1200 pages long, and to Critias' point, the major plotlines are as old as the setting.  

So, yeah, it's a priority to make it fun.  But it is also a priority to tell your players about the game you run and pick the right ones to play it.  I am so, so thankful for my pool of players.

Quote from: jhkim;808262The thing that supremely bugs me is when someone demands a change that ruins my fun as a player, and claims that it is necessary for playability.

In my experience, my fun is often ruined by attempts by the GM and/or module writer to "tell a kick-ass story".  They are attempting to provide fun, but they are doing so in a way that comes across to me as dull and contrived. In particular, inconsistencies tend to prevent my being able to reason with the setting and come up with creative insights and/or plans.

Exactly. I feel the same way. The really good DM is one that concentrates on his job as the engine that provides a convincing fantasy world for the players to explore, and who leaves the action to the players. As a player I want to feel that I am in a game where my actions matter (and their results are determined by some seemingly impartial mechanics), not in a story whose action has been pre-determined by the DM. At least that is ideal for players with their own ideas and plans (like me).

Quote from: Nexus;807765Adventurers gotta eat and a steady diet of preserved rations get old fast. There's an untapped market!

As I said in one chapter or another of my manuscript, "You need to bring fresh food for unintelligent monsters.  Only adventurers will eat iron rations, no self respecting Ochre Jelly will touch them."

Quote from: Arohtar;808494Exactly. I feel the same way. The really good DM is one that concentrates on his job as the engine that provides a convincing fantasy world for the players to explore, and who leaves the action to the players. As a player I want to feel that I am in a game where my actions matter (and their results are determined by some seemingly impartial mechanics), not in a story whose action has been pre-determined by the DM. At least that is ideal for players with their own ideas and plans (like me).

Then tell me what you want to do.

I do indeed have a McDonald's on my sixth level after Phil Barker gave me shit about "this is absurd, what do the monsters eat?"

I'll tell you what they eat, Phil.  They eat FUCK YOU, that's what they eat.

Now, if somebody said they have a plan to interdict the monster's food supply rather than just busting my nuts, they'd get a different answer.

Nobody can design an entire world.  Don't whine about what's behind the stage sets, tell me what you want to do.

Monsters eat other monsters duh.


Its called a food chain. Its like somebody wandering through the forest going "this is totally unrealistic, what do all these animals eat?"

This was posted a while ago, but I've just found it, so here goes:

Quote from: Arohtar;807254In Battle of the Five Armies Peter Jackson introduces some worms that seemingly can dig through stone and earth as fast as troops can march. With such worms, why did the orcs not choose to exit inside the Mountain, close to the gold? If they had done this, they could have thrown Thorin and his few dwarves over the battlements and occupied the Mountain, leaving the men, elves and dwarves outside. But no no, instead the orcs exit close to the target, but with an army of men, elves and dwarves between them and the target.

Can be explained in plenty of ways:

- The Lonely Mountain is of a tougher type of rock than the surrounding hills and the worms couldn't burrow through it.
- Dwarven stonecraft is known to be superior to pretty much anything humans could do, the ancient Numenoreans possibly excepted. If the worms exist, the dwarves of old must have known about them and taken the appropriate measures, toughening up their walls and installing traps.
- The dwarven colony is massive and the orcs don't know the layout. They very well might have infiltrated at a greatly disadvantegous position, like the bottom of the mines, which would have been WORSE than attacking on the surface.
- The orcs didn't have up-to-date intel on the situation. For all they knew, Dáin Ironfoot MIGHT have arrived days ago, POSSIBLY with a much larger army, and MIGHT have been cooped up with Thorin & co. inside. Burrowing directly into the colony (whose layout the orcs don't even know) very well could have been suicidal.
- If the orcs attacked inside, the humans and elves outside would have been still fresh and unbloodied when the second army arrived. AND the second army couldn't have reinforced the first.
- In the movie, Azog put emphasis on monitoring the battle and constantly updating his orders via the semaphores. Orcs infiltrating the colony would have had no communication with HQ.
- Contrarily to your assertion, the orcs' goal was NOT to just capture the mountain. It was to capture AND HOLD the area and use it as a base for further expansion. That means killing the enemy troops on the surface and massacring Dale. Taking the Lonely Mountain from the inside would have just ended with them being besieged by the elves, humans and dwarven reinforcements, and sallying forth through the pretty narrow front gates to fight would have been disadvantegous.

The only way it needs to be explained is that Peter Jackson is the new George Lucas, drunk on his own hubris.

Please keep your personal feelings out of our discussion of logical inconsistencies, and we promise not to crap your threads, either. :)

Quote from: CRKrueger;808653The only way it needs to be explained is that Peter Jackson is the new George Lucas, drunk on his own hubris.

Sounds about right.

Heh, pretty sure the Peter Jackson version of The Hobbit has little to do with the fantasy world of Middle Earth, and if you want facts not feelings, I'll give you 18 pages of them if you really want. ;). But you are right in that's a different thread.

However, there's logical world-building and then there's "for shits and giggles, let's make up a logical explanation for the Michael Bay Transformers movies."

As someone who has not yet seen the third movie yet, (In fact my wife and I just watched the second movie about a month ago or so.) has no one heard ever heard of

Spoiler

Spoilers?

:(

Though hearing what those critters are (seriously WTF!?!?) doesn't make me want to run right out and watch the third movie.

The last hobbit movie is good enough if you can put that part of your brain that remembers the book asleep.

There is a lot of combat in it, however. And, it is the movie that most bears the consequences of previous changes and insertions to the story.

Quote from: Arohtar;8065581) In D&D (the Expert Rules) a spectre can only be hit by magical weapons, it is close to invisible, it can fly faster than a running horse, it can kill any normal human with a single touch (double energy drain) and the victims rise the next night as new spectres. Since the spectres are presumably evil monsters that would love to kill as many humans as possible, I find it totally inconsistent that the fantasy world is not populated by spectres instead of humans. With the stats given, the spectres wconquer the whole world very easily.

What is its motivation for spending all night, every night, killing as many humans as possible? Being evil isn't a motivation.  What does a Specter want in (un)life?

Mostly to be left alone. Its evil because it's willing to kill to get it, and also because it is powered by negative planar energy or something.  

How is this different from Vampires, who are just as powerful, and can create thralls/spawn as well?  Vampires have an active reason to hunt people (hunger).

Quote2) Why build expensive castles? As soon as the opposition includes high lever magic users, the castle offers no protection. Its walls can be circumvented with fly, invisibility and teleport, and its garrison can easily be wiped out with fire balls (if not possible in a single day, kill a few soldiers every day with a fire balls and keep going until they are all dead). In a world with such powerful assassins I see hiding as the only possible defense. Sitting on a throne in a castle is being a sitting duck to any magic user. As soon as his whereabouts are known, a fighter is of course easy prey to any magic user who knows 'fly' and 'fire ball'.

Lee Harvey Oswald. John Wilkes Boothe. Charles Guiteau. Leon Czolgozs. Gavrilo Princip.

Would you like me to go on?  I can, you know. All day if I have to.

But I'm guessing you are missing my point, so I'll explain: Castles and armed guards have never stopped political leaders from being killed, often by quite common and ordinary men and the occasional woman. It takes no extraordinary skill, no magic or super powers to kill the king.  That hasn't stopped us from building castles and White Houses and Kremlins, from building monuments to powers and prestige.

Why should the existence of wizards change that one whit?

Militarily speaking?  

A flying wizard, or a flying anyone, is a beautiful target for archers. Invisibility drops as soon as offensive action is taken.  Fireballs are that terribly impressive compared to grenades, and grenades did not appreciably change the modern battlefield.  Plus: friendly wizards.

Quote3) Why do humans behave as if they are on top of the food chain if they are not? In a world with dragons humans would be animals of prey, living underground as mice, only coming out at night.

You don't understand humans or the food chain very well.  If you think humans in a non-D&D setting are the 'top of the food chain' you should have no trouble with locking yourself in the lion enclosure of your local zoo. You'll be perfectly safe, right? You're the top of the food chain.

In other words: There are any number of species on Earth Today that are more than capable of killing  and eating a man, or even a reasonably large group of men.  Humans are soft, slow, weak and utterly lacking in natural weapons of any sort.

So: Do you know why there are no bears or lions to be found anywhere in Europe? The Romans killed them all for fun.  Why are Rhino's endangered? I mean we are talking a beast capable of 'killing' a decent sized car and more or less immune to most conventional weapons, and utterly lacking in natural predators.

And in D&D land? Humans have magic on their side, in addition to sharp pointy objects and a racial penchant for blood that should make even vampires take notice.

Quote4) Why does every fantasy world village contain ten farmhouses and an inn? How many people travel through this small village in the hills? How many people live in the village?

Because farmers like to drink and socialize too.  Or do they not count?

Quote5) Why raise armies? 1000 normal men are insignificant compared to a magic user with fly, invisibility and fire ball. The magic user's ability as an assassin would exert much more military pressure on a decision maker than an army of ridiculous normal men with swords and shields. In other words: the military confrontations that mattered, would be between powerful individuals, not masses of men or goblins. (Everybody knows that goblins are only there for the show, but the men would not matter either).

Quantity is a Quality all its own.  There is a reason not every soldier is trained to be a special forces operator, and why small teams of Navy Seals don't conquer China over lunch.  

Of course, now I find myself curious why you think all, or even a substantial minority, of Wizards really want to go around slaughtering thousands of people all the time, or even risking their old, scholarly, bones in magical duels to the death with other wizards, when there are perfectly serviceable armies made up of athletic young men with serious aggression issues out there to handle all that hard, sweaty business?  

And how do you imagine this works?

Round ONe: Wizard teleports in and drops a fireball on the General's tent/entourage. Being hoary old soldiers with several levels under their belt and decent con scores from their long years of campaigning, only a handful actually die, the rest are just sort of crispy around the edges (Seriously: A max level fireball averages about 35 points of damage, which isn't an 'I win' button against a group of fifth (or so) level fighters.)

Since this is the middle of an army, there are probably several hundred soldiers within 'engagement' range of the wizard with whatever weapon they happen to have handy, but we'll say the Wizard is counting on surprise and is 'very sneaky', so they need a 20 on the dice to avoid surprise, to be super generous.  So that means that on round one a dozen or so fighters will now attempt to engage the wizard, while the rest are surprised and will go on round two.  Wizards are not known for their armor class nor their hit points.

Presuming he survives AND avoids having his spell disrupted, the Wizard teleports back out, having burned three mid-high level spells to annoy the general and give him a nice tan.

In order to render the army obsolete, you need lots of wizards popping in and out, possibly on the order of one third to one fifth the size of the army, and you'll probably lose a few of these much more intensely trained spell-soldiers in process.

Hardly 'world breaking'.

Oh. I know how this goes: You'll keep piling on 'white box' solutions to any challenge. This wizard has contingency spells to auto-teleport him back out, or he just drops a few summoned elementals on the enemy army instead, or what have you. Mostly you'll complain that he's not killing enough important people or using three or four ninth level spells each assault, several assaults a day...  because you are a tool, and I've seen this all before.  I've seen players try this shit in games and whine and quit when they don't 'auto-win' because 'wizard'.  

QuotePlease add more examples, and let us ridicule these game designers with no ability for logic reasoning.

Ridiculing you for your lack of ability for logic reasoning is much more fun.

Quote from: Baron Opal;808676The last hobbit movie is good enough if you can put that part of your brain that remembers the book asleep.

There is a lot of combat in it, however. And, it is the movie that most bears the consequences of previous changes and insertions to the story.

but oddly the best part of the film is the fight at Dol Guldur which is hinted at in the appendices but is largely created whole cloth.

Quote from: Bren;808675As someone who has not yet seen the third movie yet, (In fact my wife and I just watched the second movie about a month ago or so.) has no one heard ever heard of

Spoiler

Spoilers?

:(

Though hearing what those critters are (seriously WTF!?!?) doesn't make me want to run right out and watch the third movie.

I think you should go and see it. I is the best of the three films in my opinion. I think the Thorin character is portrayed and played really well. There are some "shits and giggles" that I think are childish, but there are also good things. So hurry up, or you will have heard all about the film before getting to see it.

Quote from: Spike;808683So: Do you know why there are no bears or lions to be found anywhere in Europe? The Romans killed them all for fun.

Plenty of bears in Europe, bub.  

Quote from: SpikeRidiculing you for your lack of ability for logic reasoning is much more fun.

What goes around, comes around...

Quote from: Spike;808683What is its motivation for spending all night, every night, killing as many humans as possible?

Suggestions: fun, revenge, power trip, the enjoyable experience of panicking humans trying to flee or begging for their lives, only to get slain, the enjoyment of destruction. Wiping out a farmstead must surely be more interesting than to haunt a deserted ruin. But who knows? Many people explain the absence of the spectres with their desire for loneliness, and that is a fair enough explanation.

Quote from: Spike;808683Castles and armed guards have never stopped political leaders from being killed.

Of course they did. Are you crazy? Those measures stopped lots of killings of political leaders. Do you think the Russian tsar would survive for long without his castles and his guards?

That reminds me of a story. The russian tzar was visiting the Danish king, and they visited the "Round Tower" (a tower in Copenhagen). The Russian tsar boasted: "I can ask any of my men to jump off this tower, and he will do it right away without question". The Danish king answered: "If I am on a hunt, I can visit a random Danish farmhouse without my guard, ask for a bed, go to sleep, and wake up the next day."

Quote from: Spike;808683Why should the existence of wizards change that one whit?

Militarily speaking?  

A flying wizard, or a flying anyone, is a beautiful target for archers. Invisibility drops as soon as offensive action is taken.  Fireballs are that terribly impressive compared to grenades, and grenades did not appreciably change the modern battlefield.  Plus: friendly wizards.

I think the possibility of an invisible man, flying in and dropping a hand grenade next to the king and then flying away, would change something. I am not sure exactly how the world would deal with it, but I think it would have an impact.

In D&D a fire ball from a 20th level (and above) caster does 20d6 damage, and such a caster can have several of those. The range of the fire ball is longer than the range of the longbow, so even if the caster misjudges his altitude and is within arrow range, the archer would need to more or less directly underneath the wizard to hit him (shooting straight up and at long range). Three 20d6 fire balls will be a serious problem, even to the highest level of fighters, and the fire ball will "remove" the archers too, if they are too close to the king (in order to shoot at the wizard). After firing the three fireballs (doing around 105 hp of damage if all saving throws are made), the wizard gains altitude and flies away. Next day he comes back (invisible). If the king survived the first day, we must hope he had a good rest before getting grilled again. Also the Wizard can use spells to protect him from arrows. 'Mirror image' and 'protection from normal missiles' for example.

Quote from: Spike;808683You don't understand humans or the food chain very well.  If you think humans in a non-D&D setting are the 'top of the food chain' you should have no trouble with locking yourself in the lion enclosure of your local zoo. You'll be perfectly safe, right? You're the top of the food chain.

In other words: There are any number of species on Earth Today that are more than capable of killing  and eating a man, or even a reasonably large group of men.  Humans are soft, slow, weak and utterly lacking in natural weapons of any sort.

So: Do you know why there are no bears or lions to be found anywhere in Europe? The Romans killed them all for fun.  Why are Rhino's endangered? I mean we are talking a beast capable of 'killing' a decent sized car and more or less immune to most conventional weapons, and utterly lacking in natural predators.

And in D&D land? Humans have magic on their side, in addition to sharp pointy objects and a racial penchant for blood that should make even vampires take notice.

The "food chain" is not a real chain. There are several creatures on top. Or do you not think that humans are on top?

If many wild animals were around, we humans would need to take measures. Build fences etc.

In the real world humans are not used to large, flying monsters swooping down on them. If large, flying monsters WERE around, humans would need to take measures. It should impact the setting.

Quote from: Spike;808683Because farmers like to drink and socialize too.  Or do they not count?

I just argue that it takes a rather large customer base to support an inn.

Quote from: Spike;808683Of course, now I find myself curious why you think all, or even a substantial minority, of Wizards really want to go around slaughtering thousands of people all the time, or even risking their old, scholarly, bones in magical duels to the death with other wizards, when there are perfectly serviceable armies made up of athletic young men with serious aggression issues out there to handle all that hard, sweaty business?  

Other wizards is a problem to a wizard. But if someone does not have magic, they are finished. I am not talking about necessarily slaughtering thousands of people. Just the leaders until the rest give up. What is the relevance of the hard and sweaty stuff? There is no reason to get sweaty if you have fire balls.

Quote from: Spike;808683And how do you imagine this works?

Round ONe: Wizard teleports in and drops a fireball on the General's tent/entourage. Being hoary old soldiers with several levels under their belt and decent con scores from their long years of campaigning, only a handful actually die, the rest are just sort of crispy around the edges (Seriously: A max level fireball averages about 35 points of damage, which isn't an 'I win' button against a group of fifth (or so) level fighters.)

Since this is the middle of an army, there are probably several hundred soldiers within 'engagement' range of the wizard with whatever weapon they happen to have handy, but we'll say the Wizard is counting on surprise and is 'very sneaky', so they need a 20 on the dice to avoid surprise, to be super generous.  So that means that on round one a dozen or so fighters will now attempt to engage the wizard, while the rest are surprised and will go on round two.  Wizards are not known for their armor class nor their hit points.

Presuming he survives AND avoids having his spell disrupted, the Wizard teleports back out, having burned three mid-high level spells to annoy the general and give him a nice tan.

In order to render the army obsolete, you need lots of wizards popping in and out, possibly on the order of one third to one fifth the size of the army, and you'll probably lose a few of these much more intensely trained spell-soldiers in process.

Hardly 'world breaking'.

Oh. I know how this goes: You'll keep piling on 'white box' solutions to any challenge. This wizard has contingency spells to auto-teleport him back out, or he just drops a few summoned elementals on the enemy army instead, or what have you. Mostly you'll complain that he's not killing enough important people or using three or four ninth level spells each assault, several assaults a day...  because you are a tool, and I've seen this all before.  I've seen players try this shit in games and whine and quit when they don't 'auto-win' because 'wizard'.

Here is what I imagine. The 20th level wizard casts 'fly' and 'invisibility' and flies over the enemy army. He identifies the enemy leader and positions himself above him, at the maximum range of the fire ball. (His experience with shooting fire balls should make him able to judge this quite well. The range of the fire ball is 240', and the range of the longbow is 210', so there is room for some error before getting within archer range). At a good time, for example when the enemy leader is surrounded by many advisors, the magic user throws a fire ball. The 20d6 of damage will instantly kill up to around 9th level fighters regardless of their saving throw. In the coming two rounds the wizard fires two more fire balls. Then he gains in altitude, casts 'invisibility' and flies away (so nobody will be able to see in what direction he goes).

An enemy wizard would be a problem to the wizard, but if the army consisted of vikings or natives without magic, the plan should work fine, don't you agree?

How did we loop back to this piece of inanity?

Quote from: Bren;808742How did we loop back to this piece of inanity?

Beats me.

...well someone just had to go and make another answer to the OP's post, I guess.

Quote from: Bren;808742How did we loop back to this piece of inanity?

Trolls regenerate and continue blundering on of not killed with fire...

Quote from: The Ent;808743Beats me.

...well someone just had to go and make another answer to the OP's post, I guess.

Yes. Spike argues that invisible, flying wizards with fire balls would have no military significance. I do not agree.

Imagine Obama in the White House garden: "Dear Americans..." *BOOOM* Oh shit! An Islamic State wizard has cast a fire ball! There he is! No! Where is he? He's gone invisible!

20d6 halved (for a save) averages 35 points. 9d10  averages 50.5 points. 11d4+9  averages only 36.5 points.

The  20th-level mu is on average toast with a failed save vs. an 11th-lvl fb  or lb. How is the in fact more easily killed figure so privileged as to attain (extraordinarily) high level and not face even such inferiors?

Quote from: Omega;808744Trolls regenerate and continue blundering on of not killed with fire...

And acid. :)

Quote from: Arohtar;808745Imagine Obama in the White House garden

Why would I want to imagine that? Why?!?

It doesn't sound at all interesting or remotely fun. It just sounds goofy. Instead of spending time imagining goofy shit that you don't want to run, why don't you imagine something fun that you would actually enjoy running?

Quote from: Phillip;80874920d6 halved (for a save) averages 35 points. 9d10  averages 50.5 points. 11d4+9  averages only 36.5 points.

The  20th-level mu is on average toast with a failed save vs. an 11th-lvl fb  or lb. How is the in fact more easily killed figure so privileged as to attain (extraordinarily) high level and not face even such inferiors?

Yes, you are right. Magic users should be very afraid of other magic users. The attacking magic user should try to take out any fire ball capacity before going for the king. The risk of a hidden magic user with fire ball is a danger to the wizard.

I suppose fire ball damage is cumulative. If the player characters were all magic users, they could use this strategy to kill the king with a single blast. Hanging invisibly in the air they would count: 3, 2, 1, twathar! If they were four, they would deal 80d6 hit points of damage.

They could also begin with sending invisible stalkers after the king. If they were 4, each of level 20, they could each summon 4 invisible stalkers per day. That means that every morning the king's tent would be visited by 16 invisible stalkers.

Quote from: Bren;808755And acid. :)

Why would I want to imagine that? Why?!?

It doesn't sound at all interesting or remotely fun. It just sounds goofy. Instead of spending time imagining goofy shit that you don't want to run, why don't you imagine something fun that you would actually enjoy running?

To imagine the military (and political) consequences of magic users with fly, invisibility and fire ball.

I think it could be somewhat funny to let a high level party of magic users and clerics 'break' the fantasy world. To let them use their power for themselves, not on some dungeon monsters in a remote mountain range.

The Duke Stephan of Karameikos steps forward and speaks with his noble voice: "Adventurers, you have done well." *BOOOOM* The blackened body of the duke slams to the ground with a rattle from the armor. Two simultaneous 20d6 fire balls from party magic users killed the F18 instantly. Ten seconds later the body rises. Muffled words of "brain" can be heard from inside the helmet. The crowd of onlookers flee screaming in all directions from the zombie.

There must be 50 ways to whack a wizard.

Apprentices are cheaper, baby. Saves? We don't need no stinking saves! Have a dozen Magic  Missiles and screw you and your Ring of Spell Turning.

Meanwhile, the Lords attend to the nasties that call for more than a one-shot Johnny. They can crank out that mayhem all day,  which is why the enemy's morale checks seldom give them the chance.

Quote from: Arohtar;808758I think it could be somewhat funny to let a high level party of magic users and clerics 'break' the fantasy world.

Yes, despite your OP that is the impression I am getting.

What you describe sounds like the kind of god awful stuff I remember discussing when I first played D&D back in the mid seventies. But we were a bunch of teenagers so you gotta expect some awful in the mix. I don't think many of us actually played that out though. I guess most of us recognized it for what it was without wanting or needing the direct experience of doing it. On the other hand, since you find it fun you should just go play that.

As a GM, I think that random homicidal invisible flying MUs call for poisoned food and wine to sell to them. The bearded bastards have to eat and drink something after all and they are too busy learning spells, killing people, and resting up for a new day of slaughter to grow their own food. And they aren't clerics so they can't detect the poison or detoxify it and they are probably loaded with loot from their killing spree. Knock one or two of those old assholes off and you can retire to a nice place up in the mountains away from the major wizardly flight paths. As a GM I figure 3% - 15% chance anything the wizard eats or drinks is poison. How good is a 20th level wizard's saving throw vs. poison?

Quote from: Bren;808762Yes, despite your OP that is the impression I am getting.

What you describe sounds like the kind of god awful stuff I remember discussing when I first played D&D back in the mid seventies. But we were a bunch of teenagers so you gotta expect some awful in the mix. I don't think many of us actually played that out though. I guess most of us recognized it for what it was without wanting or needing the direct experience of doing it. On the other hand, since you find it fun you should just go play that.

You are right that it will not be funny for long, but maybe a single session of mayhem could be refreshing. I don't know if you know the Known World (Mystara), but there are some NPCs there that everybody knows. Duke Stephan, Price Jaggar von Drachenfels etc. My old players would probably find it quite funny to have some sessions trying to assassinate these people and take power themselves.

Wizards are just like any new technology, they require counters and strategies to deal with them.  You assume a security apparatus that works on countering the work of another security apparatus, magical or otherwise.    You assume the "Chicago Way - he summons an invisible stalker, you summon a demon, he summons a devil, you get a cease and desist order from Adramalech."  You assume detente to prevent mutually assured destruction, not only from mortals but immortals as well.  You assume rogues are put down by those who created them.

What you don't do is turn the entire world into Phoenix Command level detail about things like exact patrol routes of astral, ethereal, invisible and out of phase beings and every conceivable defense mundane, arcane and divine to adequately answer the mating cry of the Denner "because wizards".

Quote from: Arohtar;808764You are right that it will not be funny for long, but maybe a single session of mayhem could be refreshing. I don't know if you know the Known World (Mystara), but there are some NPCs there that everybody knows. Duke Stephan, Price Jaggar von Drachenfels etc. My old players would probably find it quite funny to have some sessions trying to assassinate these people and take power themselves.

Then some kids from Glantri or Alphatia might have something funny enough to get their  kicks.

Quote from: Arohtar;808745Yes. Spike argues that invisible, flying wizards with fire balls would have no military significance. I do not agree.

Maybe the respective sides in this discussion are mistakenly assuming the others are arguing for some ludicrous extreme?

While we can nitpick the case of the invisible wizard and fireball, I think there is an underlying truth. RPG magic systems are usually designed around the intended adventures. Thus, typical RPG magic makes it much easier for a small band to break into a stronghold and kill key inhabitants, and is poor at helping the defenders coordinate protection against such bands. I wrote about this long ago regarding the effects of magic on society. (1) (http://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/magicandsociety.html)

If one assumes that this magic system is true throughout the world over time, though, this would have logical consequences for society.

The simplest answer is just to ignore those consequences, and live with some inconsistency. This works reasonably well - issues sometimes come up, though, if the PCs get into conflict with local authorities. Typically, the GM likes to encourage them to break in and kill a hill giant chieftan in his fortress, but considers it a major problem if they want to take out a dwarf lord or human duke.

If you want to patch these problems, though, I suggest actually modifying the magic system with some house rules to put in more powerful spells and options for defense.

A third, rarely-tried option is to rewrite the setting so that it follows through on the social consequences of the magic system as written.

Quote from: CRKrueger;808766Wizards are just like any new technology, they require counters and strategies to deal with them.  You assume a security apparatus that works on countering the work of another security apparatus, magical or otherwise.

Often, there isn't a countering strategy that neutralizes the new technology. Instead, the new technology simply becomes dominant. For example, there is no particular counter to firearms other than just using more firearms.

Changes in technology can have major effects on patterns of living and social organization.

Quote from: Arohtar;808740Suggestions: fun, revenge, power trip, the enjoyable experience of panicking humans trying to flee or begging for their lives, only to get slain, the enjoyment of destruction. Wiping out a farmstead must surely be more interesting than to haunt a deserted ruin. But who knows? Many people explain the absence of the spectres with their desire for loneliness, and that is a fair enough explanation.

As was pointed out many times before, your entire broken world assumption rests almost entirely on your own assignment of motivations. You would be the first non-comedic source I am aware of for suggesting ghosts/spectral undead actually enjoy... er... life.  

If your assumption about the motivations of Specters is correct, then why aren't people going out in droves to get this free power-up?

More likely: the default assumption most people have is that being dead sucks all the fun out of having fun is correct, and therefore Specters don't really get a thrill out of scaring people or a frisson of pleasure out of casual murder... or really anything else.  

QuoteOf course they did. Are you crazy? Those measures stopped lots of killings of political leaders. Do you think the Russian tsar would survive for long without his castles and his guards?

That's funny. I haven't heard from a Romanov lately.  

QuoteI think the possibility of an invisible man, flying in and dropping a hand grenade next to the king and then flying away, would change something. I am not sure exactly how the world would deal with it, but I think it would have an impact.

I never suggest it wouldn't.  On the other hand, I also don't suggest that all non-wizards would simply give up and accept living in, I dunno, caves or something, since if they ever had anything nice a wizard would just teleport in and kill them for it... which seems to be your point.

QuoteIn D&D a fire ball from a 20th level (and above) caster does 20d6 damage, and such a caster can have several of those. The range of the fire ball is longer than the range of the longbow,

You OP did restrict editions. Neither fact is true of recent editions.  I have neither the time nor inclination to debate facts from a forty year old book that no one I've ever met (personally, anyway) uses, or in fact has ever used in my thirty years of gaming.

Quoteso even if the caster misjudges his altitude and is within arrow range, the archer would need to more or less directly underneath the wizard to hit him (shooting straight up and at long range). Three 20d6 fire balls will be a serious problem, even to the highest level of fighters, and the fire ball will "remove" the archers too, if they are too close to the king (in order to shoot at the wizard).

Aaaaannnnnndddddd.... you're whiteboxing. Why on earth, or Mystara, or Toril or wherever you like, is everyone standing in the radius of the fireball, and only the fireball. Since you are postulating a Flying wizard here, that implies out of doors. Why/how is the wizard perfectly placing himself directly at exactly his maximum range? None of this mythical wizard/assassins gets a bit sloppy and overconfident about distance? What if the archers are in nearby towers?   How is the wizard popping off three fireballs all at one time?

And just how many of these 20th level wizard king-killers are running around that no one would ever bother building a castle?

 

QuoteAfter firing the three fireballs (doing around 105 hp of damage if all saving throws are made), the wizard gains altitude and flies away. Next day he comes back (invisible). If the king survived the first day, we must hope he had a good rest before getting grilled again. Also the Wizard can use spells to protect him from arrows. 'Mirror image' and 'protection from normal missiles' for example.

Ahh, yes: The wizard has an answer for every problem, even the ones he hasn't thought of yet.  Whiteboxing again. An actual wizard assassin, such as you postulate, only controls events up until he teleports in. In this case, he expects archers and is invisible but also mirror imaged... and the king hasn't got some dude with magic arrows nearby, on account of all those pesky 20th level wizards that keep killing his peers.  

Of course, if the King doesn't happen to go outside when the wizard is ready to pounce... and please tell me your assassins have inhuman patience too... and he has to teleport into the 'useless' castle in order to strike? Well, then 'protection from normal missiles' will be useless when somebody sticks a shiv in him.  We haven't even gotten into intelligence/counter-intelligence yet.

QuoteThe "food chain" is not a real chain. There are several creatures on top. Or do you not think that humans are on top?

Yes, I understand that. Clearly, despite your ability to parrot it from somewhere, you do not or I would not have pointed it out.

QuoteIf many wild animals were around, we humans would need to take measures. Build fences etc.

In the real world humans are not used to large, flying monsters swooping down on them. If large, flying monsters WERE around, humans would need to take measures. It should impact the setting.

And yet: your ancestors were quite used to large and vicious fanged and clawed beasts jumping out at them. They took measures, namely killing enough of them that it stopped being an issue.

So we can presume that if any specters in the past were inclined to go on 'kill all the living' sprees, they were ruthlessly dealt with, despite all their numerous advantages over the living. Just like ancient humans dealt with other dangerous things.  

My point is that the clear numeric/ability superiority your assumption rests on exists in the real world, and yet we don't spend our days trying to avoid becoming lion chow.  I have yet to see one solitary "anti-lion" defense in my life.

QuoteI just argue that it takes a rather large customer base to support an inn.

Bullshit.  The problem is not the assumption that every town or hamlet or two horse village has an 'inn', its that you're assuming every 'inn' has to be a the fantasy equivilent of a modern sport's bar.

QuoteOther wizards is a problem to a wizard. But if someone does not have magic, they are finished.

The king doesn't need magic, just the ability to convince/hire/sweettalk another wizard.  And one of the default setting assumptions for most fantasy worlds is the cliche of a 'court wizard'.  So right there we have just broken your entire argument that the setting is inconsistent because any sufficiently high level wizard can kill the king.

Never mind that so can a chamber maid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Corday) with a dull breadknife.

QuoteI am not talking about necessarily slaughtering thousands of people.

Sure you are. You are suggesting that no one would build castles or lead armies because Wizards would just kill them all. That implies an awful lot of killing.  Furthermore: Human nature, and history, suggests strongly that if someone kills the king, then all the kings rivals and subordinates will strive to take the king's place, so killing the guy wearing the shiny hat presumably doesn't solve the wizard's problem. He'll have to repeat his murder several times per kingdom he wants to overthrow, at the very least. If he's trying to stop an army? He'll have to kill enough to seriously demotivate the troops, which we can generally suggest is equivilent to killing as many troops/officers as could be killed in a loss in battle.

So yes, you are in fact suggesting thousands of deaths, per event. Repeated often enough to significantly change the shape of the setting as a reaction.

QuoteWhat is the relevance of the hard and sweaty stuff? There is no reason to get sweaty if you have fire balls.

lol

QuoteHere is what I imagine. The 20th level wizard casts 'fly' and 'invisibility' and flies over the enemy army. He identifies the enemy leader and positions himself above him, at the maximum range of the fire ball. (His experience with shooting fire balls should make him able to judge this quite well. The range of the fire ball is 240', and the range of the longbow is 210', so there is room for some error before getting within archer range). At a good time, for example when the enemy leader is surrounded by many advisors, the magic user throws a fire ball. The 20d6 of damage will instantly kill up to around 9th level fighters regardless of their saving throw. In the coming two rounds the wizard fires two more fire balls. Then he gains in altitude, casts 'invisibility' and flies away (so nobody will be able to see in what direction he goes).

You aren't suggesting anything of the sort. You are suggesting that many 20th level wizards routinely do this to any and every army and/or king that appears, so much so that purely mundane political acts and wars SIMPLY.DO.NOT.OCCUR.    You are suggesting that there are enough bored 20th level wizards just waiting around, with nothing more pressing to do than to keep those damn mudbloods (or whatever) from getting uppity, that whenever its been tried, a Wizard has simply shown up and killed everyone he had to until the ruckus died down again and he could get back to being bored.

QuoteAn enemy wizard would be a problem to the wizard, but if the army consisted of vikings or natives without magic, the plan should work fine, don't you agree?

How is the setting inconsitent and broken if it requires YOU to assume a consistently unequal distribution of wizards?  

Why should I agree to such a sloppy assumption?

Quote from: The Ent;808734Plenty of bears in Europe, bub.  

Ah, a correction that manages to be almost equally incorrect, in the opposite fashion.

QuoteWhat goes around, comes around...

By all means, bub. Ridicule me. Right now you're just lazily claiming to do so without putting in the work.

Quote from: Spike;808852Ah, a correction that manages to be almost equally incorrect, in the opposite fashion.

"Plenty" is a rather subjective term, so maybe it wasn't the best choice of words on his part. But that aside, you do know and acknowledge that bears still exist in Europe, roughly 55,000 of them; and that contrarily to your earlier absolute claim were NOT completely wiped out by the Romans, right? RIGHT?

Part of creating a more congruent and logical setting/system match is using/creating/amending a system whose system of magic mimics the type of game you play and intend.

I agree with jhkim there.  I include a number of magical types, with the spell, that try to answer the question of, "what type of magic would people study and create outside of the adventuring phase of the game?"  Often easily answered when you look at magic the same way as technology.

We also assume for every mundane spell we create, there are dozens of other versions.  

Since the games I prefer to run deal with the mundane and non-adventuring more than most, this gets looked at a lot.  Some examples.


http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955498/Disrupt%20Moon%20Cycle%20spell
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955482/Destruction%20of%20Unborn%20Foetus
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956684/Weight%20of%20Gold%20and%20Electrum-Earth
http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956440/Tea%20Time

Quote from: Spike;808851your ancestors were quite used to large and vicious fanged and clawed beasts jumping out at them. They took measures, namely killing enough of them that it stopped being an issue.

First good laugh of the day

Quote from: jhkim;808837A third, rarely-tried option is to rewrite the setting so that it follows through on the social consequences of the magic system as written.

A thought exercise,

First some assumptions.

To keep it simple lets use Swords & Wizardy with the four classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief) and start out with just humans.

1) Assume that humans were primitive and like our own history discovered technology through invention this includes arcane magic (magic-users).

2) Assume that deities are real and confer knowledge of divine magic through revelation (i.e. clerics).

My opinion is that things would progress more or less as our own history until about 100,000 BC give or take a couple of thousand of years. This is the point where things progressed to the point where primitive humans have inner life in their mind. Where things like art, and religion started to take form.

Religious magic would start as supplication. As language developed a sense of a larger world also developed. Along with the idea that there was something out there to appeal to make to make bad things stop happening.

And in this world, what out there answers unequivocally with divine magic. The problem of divine magic would likely be imagination. You have to think of a thing in order to imagine it as magic. So cultural sophistication would play a part as well as the desires of the invoked deity.

With arcane magic it would likely start out as imitation, like effects like and other traditional principles of historical magic. Not only the caster has to have to think of a thing in order to make it happen as magic, he has to discovered the means by which to do it with. So it is chained to the same limits of technological progression without the presence of a divine being as a shortcut.

Both form of magic suffer from the problem that their practitioners are not gathering food. There is a upper limit of people studying religion or arcane magic that a paleolithic tribe can support.

The situation would likely result in a comfortable existence as hunter gatherer tribes. While bad things will still result, they will be mitigated by the use of divine and to a lesser extent arcane magic.  The shamans would a vital but small part of the entire population.

This could result in a long period of cultural stagnation as while human culture would develop leading to a rich life of art, song, and dance. However technology itself retarded to the Paleolithic set of tools and techniques.

However the existence of Create Food & Drink means that somewhere, someplace a lot of people can live together without the need for agriculture. Likely they will do so to establish a religious centers involving megalithic structures (stuff built of giant stones like Stonehenge). These would double as trade and cultural centers as well.

There would a limit to the size of the area dominated by these megalithic religious centers due to the speed of communication, limits of mass producing food by magic, and limits of hunter gatherer for resources.

Arcane magic would be a sideshow during this time, a lesser form of magic practiced on the side or practiced by people unable or unwilling to believe in any deity.

As static this landscape first appears, the odds of a major disaster, or more likely the appearance of rival humans will led to a catastrophe as the centuries roll on. It is in these catastrophes that the progress of technology will continue including that of arcane magic.

Because Divine magic depends the context of a religion. The culture that surrounds the worship of a deity. Culture needs people and the more people it has the more it thrives. Take away the people the culture will collapse or disappear.

At first this would result in a period of cycles. The building of religious centers with their influence over a wide area. Then some catastrophe and the population scattered. Then another period of rebuilding.

Eventually at some point various parts of Neolithic technology including agriculture will be discovered. Neolithic technology would spread alongside the existing form of magic because it provides a reliable backup. A culture with both magic and Neolithic technology would survive and thrive better than a magic and Paleolithic society

Likely things would start to progress a little more quickly than our own history after the discovery of agriculture, and animal husbandry. Again divine magic would be used to mitigate disease and minor disasters. Allowing for larger populations to live together and to live longer.

Eventually this will lead to increasing cultural sophistication including the first cities, the discovery of writing, mega temples, and last but not least the use of metal.

However increasing technological sophistication particularly animal husbandry will lead to more diversity in human society.  In our own history the landscape of the Middle East was dominated by two major group. The agricultural intensive societies of Egypt, and Sumeria, and the pastoralist nomad tribe that surrounded them.

The agricultural societies in normal times could resist the pastoralist because they had the number. Note they did not necessarily had much of a technological advantage. Pastorialism is an alternative development not a relic of the old hunter gather tribes.

Again the presence and use of divine magic would give agricultural societies an advantage. But as the centuries roll on, eventually there will be the disaster that they are not able to cope with. Like in our history the pastoralists will invade. The old society will fragment and in the chaos different things will be tried.

It is here where the medieval world assumed by Swords & Wizardry and D&D can arise.

As cultural sophistication grows, what will grow along side it is the realization that religion involves service to beings with powers greater than one's own.  That their goals are not always your goals. Also likely is the realization that certain deities may not care about particular aspects of life.

The net result is that from focusing on mostly placating a all-mighty deity as the reason for everything, the focus now diversify. Religion is still hugely important but other area of society develop. Among these will be the arcane based magic-users.

Eventually the higher level and more powerful spell will be discovered by the magic users. But their use will be in the context of long established cultures with powerful pre-existing supernatural powers namely the temples and their clerics.

And while magic-users will be more powerful than any prior time, they still have to contend with the fact that in or to achieve such power using Swords & Wizardry they have to study. A lot of study. This is their Achilles heel in any society. Along with the fact that it is easier to find, develop, and become a high level cleric than it is for a magic-user.

A magic-user will enjoy power, wealth and fame, but it will not be without limits. Likewise despite their dominance clerics will also have limits. The vast majority of people still need protection and the best methods of providing that protection are the things that were developed in our history. Like walls, castles, etc.

Anyone mention Inevitables yet?

Divine robots dedicated to keeping the universe in order, including one major branch entirely devoted to keeping undead in check.

Standard in 3e, not sure about other editions.

Quote from: Will;808913Anyone mention Inevitables yet?

Divine robots dedicated to keeping the universe in order, including one major branch entirely devoted to keeping undead in check.

Standard in 3e, not sure about other editions.

BECMI, which the OP is basing off of, had Immortals who are ascended beings. They do all the grunt work of keeping the multiverse running and making sure nothing gets out of hand on the worlds they take interest in or built/populated.

Quote from: Will;808913Anyone mention Inevitables yet?

Divine robots dedicated to keeping the universe in order, including one major branch entirely devoted to keeping undead in check.

Standard in 3e, not sure about other editions.

I don't recall them in 1st edition AD&D, but maybe they were in something like the Manual of the Planes. (They're from another plane, aren't they?)

Checked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inevitable_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29

Quote from: Will;808933Checked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inevitable_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29

Looking stuff up?! Hmm, hmm, hmm. No, I don't think it'll catch on. :D

Quote from: estar;808906A thought exercise,

First some assumptions.

To keep it simple lets use Swords & Wizardy with the four classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief) and start out with just humans.

1) Assume that humans were primitive and like our own history discovered technology through invention this includes arcane magic (magic-users).

2) Assume that deities are real and confer knowledge of divine magic through revelation (i.e. clerics).

My opinion is that things would progress more or less as our own history until about 100,000 BC give or take a couple of thousand of years. This is the point where things progressed to the point where primitive humans have inner life in their mind. Where things like art, and religion started to take form.

Religious magic would start as supplication. As language developed a sense of a larger world also developed. Along with the idea that there was something out there to appeal to make to make bad things stop happening.

And in this world, what out there answers unequivocally with divine magic. The problem of divine magic would likely be imagination. You have to think of a thing in order to imagine it as magic. So cultural sophistication would play a part as well as the desires of the invoked deity.

With arcane magic it would likely start out as imitation, like effects like and other traditional principles of historical magic. Not only the caster has to have to think of a thing in order to make it happen as magic, he has to discovered the means by which to do it with. So it is chained to the same limits of technological progression without the presence of a divine being as a shortcut.

Both form of magic suffer from the problem that their practitioners are not gathering food. There is a upper limit of people studying religion or arcane magic that a paleolithic tribe can support.

The situation would likely result in a comfortable existence as hunter gatherer tribes. While bad things will still result, they will be mitigated by the use of divine and to a lesser extent arcane magic.  The shamans would a vital but small part of the entire population.

This could result in a long period of cultural stagnation as while human culture would develop leading to a rich life of art, song, and dance. However technology itself retarded to the Paleolithic set of tools and techniques.

However the existence of Create Food & Drink means that somewhere, someplace a lot of people can live together without the need for agriculture. Likely they will do so to establish a religious centers involving megalithic structures (stuff built of giant stones like Stonehenge). These would double as trade and cultural centers as well.

There would a limit to the size of the area dominated by these megalithic religious centers due to the speed of communication, limits of mass producing food by magic, and limits of hunter gatherer for resources.

Arcane magic would be a sideshow during this time, a lesser form of magic practiced on the side or practiced by people unable or unwilling to believe in any deity.

As static this landscape first appears, the odds of a major disaster, or more likely the appearance of rival humans will led to a catastrophe as the centuries roll on. It is in these catastrophes that the progress of technology will continue including that of arcane magic.

Because Divine magic depends the context of a religion. The culture that surrounds the worship of a deity. Culture needs people and the more people it has the more it thrives. Take away the people the culture will collapse or disappear.

At first this would result in a period of cycles. The building of religious centers with their influence over a wide area. Then some catastrophe and the population scattered. Then another period of rebuilding.

Eventually at some point various parts of Neolithic technology including agriculture will be discovered. Neolithic technology would spread alongside the existing form of magic because it provides a reliable backup. A culture with both magic and Neolithic technology would survive and thrive better than a magic and Paleolithic society

Likely things would start to progress a little more quickly than our own history after the discovery of agriculture, and animal husbandry. Again divine magic would be used to mitigate disease and minor disasters. Allowing for larger populations to live together and to live longer.

Eventually this will lead to increasing cultural sophistication including the first cities, the discovery of writing, mega temples, and last but not least the use of metal.

However increasing technological sophistication particularly animal husbandry will lead to more diversity in human society.  In our own history the landscape of the Middle East was dominated by two major group. The agricultural intensive societies of Egypt, and Sumeria, and the pastoralist nomad tribe that surrounded them.

The agricultural societies in normal times could resist the pastoralist because they had the number. Note they did not necessarily had much of a technological advantage. Pastorialism is an alternative development not a relic of the old hunter gather tribes.

Again the presence and use of divine magic would give agricultural societies an advantage. But as the centuries roll on, eventually there will be the disaster that they are not able to cope with. Like in our history the pastoralists will invade. The old society will fragment and in the chaos different things will be tried.

It is here where the medieval world assumed by Swords & Wizardry and D&D can arise.

As cultural sophistication grows, what will grow along side it is the realization that religion involves service to beings with powers greater than one's own.  That their goals are not always your goals. Also likely is the realization that certain deities may not care about particular aspects of life.

The net result is that from focusing on mostly placating a all-mighty deity as the reason for everything, the focus now diversify. Religion is still hugely important but other area of society develop. Among these will be the arcane based magic-users.

Eventually the higher level and more powerful spell will be discovered by the magic users. But their use will be in the context of long established cultures with powerful pre-existing supernatural powers namely the temples and their clerics.

And while magic-users will be more powerful than any prior time, they still have to contend with the fact that in or to achieve such power using Swords & Wizardry they have to study. A lot of study. This is their Achilles heel in any society. Along with the fact that it is easier to find, develop, and become a high level cleric than it is for a magic-user.

A magic-user will enjoy power, wealth and fame, but it will not be without limits. Likewise despite their dominance clerics will also have limits. The vast majority of people still need protection and the best methods of providing that protection are the things that were developed in our history. Like walls, castles, etc.

I think in the world you describe the creation of states based on religions is inevitable. The secural power would be so beholden to the sacred that priest kings will be the defacto leaders.
However, depending on the omnipotence of the dieties those that reject religion in favour of "science" ie arcane study will congregate in groups and look to establish their own political groups. Much as occurred with the renaissance and enlightenment in our world.

From a technological perspective in say warfare you may well find that the medieval armoured knight is skipped as you jump through the dominance of horse and metal working to something more akin to the dominance of firearms with magically equipped forces making ranks of armoured knights obsolete.

I think the Wizards would get pretty bored of killing the King over and over again after they realize that he is massively wealthy and can make donations to the church to be raised repeatedly.

Quote from: Phillip;808760There must be 50 ways to whack a wizard.

Yeah, no kidding.  One of the things that's amused me about the tiresome Wizards Would Rule The World riff is that I don't see too many game systems where they're invulnerable from all conceivable attack forms, or too many PCs playing them as paranoid as they'd have to be to survive in such an environment.

And by the bye?  Could someone answer me a question?  Exactly how many 20th level wizards are depicted in any D&D campaign setting?  Swear to Hades, some of these hypotheticals seem to have them as ubiquitous as PFCs.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;808965I think the Wizards would get pretty bored of killing the King over and over again after they realize that he is massively wealthy and can make donations to the church to be raised repeatedly.

No no no. Dont you see? The bored flying invisible fireball wizards easily killed off all the clerics and druids first.

Quote from: Omega;808983No no no. Dont you see? The bored flying invisible fireball wizards easily killed off all the clerics and druids first.

Then it all comes down to invisible flying fireball wizards vs spectres...

Actually, thought could be a fun game. I'd use H.O.L. for the system

Quote from: TristramEvans;808989Then it all comes down to invisible flying fireball wizards vs spectres...

Actually, thought could be a fun game. I'd use H.O.L. for the system

Spectres win. The Wizards already killed the most effective deterrent against spectres when they eradicated the clergy.

Of course, there are also the wizards who could lich themselves to ally with the spectres.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;808990Spectres win. The Wizards already killed the most effective deterrent against spectres when they eradicated the clergy.

Of course, there are also the wizards who could lich themselves to ally with the spectres.

Arent undead vulnerable to magic weapons?

In the Ethshar novels, the implicit result is that wizards could run stuff, but that would be stupid.

When they get powerful enough, they fart off and go enjoy life in pocket realms and doing more research.

This all reminds me, what about counter magic? I know D&D isn't huge on it, but it would seem to me there would almost have to be a method of using it if we're going to have some magical world going.

I mean how funny would it be to nullify the invisible flying wizard's flight and then make sure he can't cast anything else on the way down.

Quote from: Ravenswing;808972Yeah, no kidding.  One of the things that's amused me about the tiresome Wizards Would Rule The World riff is that I don't see too many game systems where they're invulnerable from all conceivable attack forms, or too many PCs playing them as paranoid as they'd have to be to survive in such an environment.

And by the bye?  Could someone answer me a question?  Exactly how many 20th level wizards are depicted in any D&D campaign setting?  Swear to Hades, some of these hypotheticals seem to have them as ubiquitous as PFCs.

Depends on which setting.
If you look at FR, there are far more caster types at high level than melee types.

Quote from: jibbajibba;808955I think in the world you describe the creation of states based on religions is inevitable. The secural power would be so beholden to the sacred that priest kings will be the defacto leaders.

Agreed, and it would in some respects have similarities to our own world circa 2,000 BC. Except with us it was not magic that allowed the priest kings to dominate but control over the delivery of water (hydraulics) to grow crops. In our case a large and well organized society was required to support and maintain the system that fed water to the crops in Egypt, Indus Valley, and Mesopotamia.

In a fantasy world based on my assumptions, a large and well organized society is needed to feed all the kids, teenagers, and adults studying and using magic.

Quote from: jibbajibba;808955However, depending on the omnipotence of the dieties those that reject religion in favour of "science" ie arcane study will congregate in groups and look to establish their own political groups. Much as occurred with the renaissance and enlightenment in our world.

Yup and at first they would be either be outcast, unimportant, or on the margins of the theocratic state. But then a disaster, barbarians, or another empire causes a societal collapse and in the chaos they have a chance to make their own mark. Eventually after one of these event they would be part of a new society on more equal footing. And advance that much further.

Quote from: jibbajibba;808955From a technological perspective in say warfare you may well find that the medieval armoured knight is skipped as you jump through the dominance of horse and metal working to something more akin to the dominance of firearms with magically equipped forces making ranks of armoured knights obsolete.

My feeling that it depends on the magic system. For example in GURPS Magic the creation of magic items is dependent the amount of warm bodies you throw at it. It can take well made but basic items of no special significance and by the infusion of fatigue (a function of Strength in GURPS) turn them into magic items. Get enough mages together of high enough skill and you can start mass production. In short GURPS style Magic allows for a magical revolution independent of an industrial revolution.

While in D&D like Swords & Wizardry (or Swords & Wizardry) You can cut down the time but not the cost of making magic items. A magical +1 sword is always going to cost the equivalent of a year worth of income from an estate even if you can produce it in a day.

While it may be possible that the wealth multiplication enabled by a Industrial Revolution would make that a insignificant cost. There not going to be any magical revolution prior to a technological industrial revolution. Instead in a D&D style system magic items enables allow an existence of an elite with capabilities far beyond the normal populace.

The result in my opinion would be similar to our history except the quality of life for the common folks would be about 20% better. And the gulf between the common people and the political elite would be one or two order of magnitude greater than our own history. Which was pretty big to begin with.

In my opinion the primary path to a industrial revolution would be found among the 2nd rank nobles looking for cheap equalizers with the first rank of nobility. Again the most progress would happen just after times of chaos when social control of the first ranks elites are at their weakest and society is putting itself back together.

Quote from: Spike;808851The king doesn't need magic, just the ability to convince/hire/sweettalk another wizard.  And one of the default setting assumptions for most fantasy worlds is the cliche of a 'court wizard'.  So right there we have just broken your entire argument that the setting is inconsistent because any sufficiently high level wizard can kill the king.

I block your argument with my patented Setting Assumption Cliche maneuver.

What do you mean this thread is titled Fantasy world inconsistencies.  This fucktwit is wrong, just wrong wrong wrong.   See I'll use the White Box maneuver to prove it.

Quote from: MrHurst;809014This all reminds me, what about counter magic? I know D&D isn't huge on it, but it would seem to me there would almost have to be a method of using it if we're going to have some magical world going.

I mean how funny would it be to nullify the invisible flying wizard's flight and then make sure he can't cast anything else on the way down.

It would be awesome. Beautiful. There is (in the 30 years old D&D game I know) 'Silence 15' radius' and 'Dispel magic'. Most players prefer another fire ball rather than Dispel magic, so yes, better opportunities for anti-magic would be great in my opinion.

Quote from: MrHurst;809014This all reminds me, what about counter magic? I know D&D isn't huge on it, but it would seem to me there would almost have to be a method of using it if we're going to have some magical world going.

I mean how funny would it be to nullify the invisible flying wizard's flight and then make sure he can't cast anything else on the way down.

Abjurer Wizards in 5e are pretty much the Anti-Wizard. Ridiculously good counterspelling and everything.

Quote from: Arohtar;809047It would be awesome. Beautiful. There is (in then 30 years old D&D game I know) 'Silence 15' radius' and 'Dispel magic'. Most players prefer another fire ball rather than Dispel magic, so yes, better opportunities for anti-magic would be great in my opinion.

Funny thing: one time an enemy mage cast Dispel Magic, in AD&D. In AD&D, Dispel Magic is pretty brutal: it can take out any/all spells in an area of effect, destroys potions (!!!), quell magic items, and automatically interrupt spellcasting (in this edition, spells took segments to cast, and spell were hella-easier to interrupt).

Oh, the players complained about how over-powerful the Dispel Magic was, especially the wizard, who was only affected by the "interrupts all spells" part. I tried to explain a Fireball would have accomplished nearly as much, to no avail...

Quote from: MrHurst;809014This all reminds me, what about counter magic? I know D&D isn't huge on it, but it would seem to me there would almost have to be a method of using it if we're going to have some magical world going.

I mean how funny would it be to nullify the invisible flying wizard's flight and then make sure he can't cast anything else on the way down.

Phrased another way, you're saying "There ought to be a method of using counter-magic to prevent magical shenanigans." However, for most RPGs there is not. As I said earlier, RPG magic is generally good at helping a small band of attackers, and it is poor at helping a large number of defenders.

For most RPG systems, breaking an invisible attacker's magic would require knowing where and when to deploy the counter-magic. It would be interesting to set up house rules for various games to make defensive counter-magic more powerful.

Quote from: jhkim;809051Phrased another way, you're saying "There ought to be a method of using counter-magic to prevent magical shenanigans." However, for most RPGs there is not. As I said earlier, RPG magic is generally good at helping a small band of attackers, and it is poor at helping a large number of defenders.

For most RPG systems, breaking an invisible attacker's magic would require knowing where and when to deploy the counter-magic. It would be interesting to set up house rules for various games to make defensive counter-magic more powerful.

While this is generally a good point, quite a number of old school adventures had some sort of paragraph in them about "certain spells won't work in this dungeon, due to [input Gygaxian penetration justification here]".

I really think it's understood that most significant defensive structures in D&D-land will have appropriate defenses built in to them. Yes, players don't see these defenses as spells in the PHB, but invisibilty-nullificaiton-3000-yard radius has a casting time of 6 months, and material components of a 6 ton slab of granite, among other things that just didn't seem worth putting in the PBH.

Quote from: Omega;808983No no no. Dont you see? The bored flying invisible fireball wizards easily killed off all the clerics and druids first.

Exactly Omega. You are starting to learn.

These weirdos were attacked during a meeting in the forest. Old Elkhorn, the master druid, was roasted by fire balls and his dead body then disintegrated.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;808990Spectres win. The Wizards already killed the most effective deterrent against spectres when they eradicated the clergy.

Of course, there are also the wizards who could lich themselves to ally with the spectres.

True I think.

Quote from: Bren;808762As a GM, I think that random homicidal invisible flying MUs call for poisoned food and wine to sell to them. The bearded bastards have to eat and drink something after all and they are too busy learning spells, killing people, and resting up for a new day of slaughter to grow their own food. And they aren't clerics so they can't detect the poison or detoxify it and they are probably loaded with loot from their killing spree. Knock one or two of those old assholes off and you can retire to a nice place up in the mountains away from the major wizardly flight paths. As a GM I figure 3% - 15% chance anything the wizard eats or drinks is poison. How good is a 20th level wizard's saving throw vs. poison?

Yes, I think you are right. Magic users miss the cleric spells that make you self sufficient, so they are dependent on allies. They should not kill peasants. Only people who challenged their power.

Quote from: Doom;809056I really think it's understood that most significant defensive structures in D&D-land will have appropriate defenses built in to them. Yes, players don't see these defenses as spells in the PHB, but invisibilty-nullificaiton-3000-yard radius has a casting time of 6 months, and material components of a 6 ton slab of granite, among other things that just didn't seem worth putting in the PBH.

I like the idea of static, defensive, magicks ... in the hands of mason-mages of course.

Now if there's 20th level mages about, there's also Wish spells. A real shortcut. If a kingdom can get their hands on one of those say every century, over time they'll could have amassed some impressive, unique and secret defenses. Including some incredible curses.

You gotta think out of the white (room) box.

Quote from: jhkim;809051Phrased another way, you're saying "There ought to be a method of using counter-magic to prevent magical shenanigans." However, for most RPGs there is not.

Not sure about most RPGS. It doesn't seem like a D&D thing until spells like Anti-Magic show up. But it is quite common in Runequest and BRP. One of the many reasons I switched to Runequest (where countermagic is a common spell) at the beginning of the 1980s was the way the available magic and the setting fit together in a logical fashion that avoided some of the more egregious oddities.

Quote from: Arohtar;809062They should not kill peasants.

Probably not, but logically for the reasons I mentioned the peasants in your world should kill any magic user they can poison - which is eventually pretty much all of them - long before the homicidal MU ever reaches 20th level. Those bastards have to sleep and eat sometime and since they are loaded with ill gotten gains the reward is well worth the one-time risk.

You know, that would make an interesting campaign premise.

A game world where magic is forbidden and large groups, particularly clergy, will hunt them down and kill them before their power becomes unmanageable.

Quote from: Will;809081You know, that would make an interesting campaign premise.

A game world where magic is forbidden and large groups, particularly clergy, will hunt them down and kill them before their power becomes unmanageable.

Wow what a great idea. You should write that up. Maybe give it an evocative title that plays to that premise. A few years ago, I was allowed to see (and handle) an original copy of the Malleus Maleficarum - the so called Hammer of the Witches. Your premise me of that. In fact Witchhammer might be a good title for the game.

Quote from: Will;809081You know, that would make an interesting campaign premise.

A game world where magic is forbidden and large groups, particularly clergy, will hunt them down and kill them before their power becomes unmanageable.

It's...already there. In many RPGs that are not D&D settings, magic is either forbidden, controlled, or mistrusted.

Quote from: Bren;809084Wow what a great idea. You should write that up. Maybe give it an evocative title that plays to that premise. A few years ago, I was allowed to see (and handle) an original copy of the Malleus Maleficarum - the so called Hammer of the Witches. Your premise me of that. In fact Witchhammer might be a good title for the game.

The hammer part is good, but I think it should also refer to other things than just witches. In such a setting players will mostly play warriors...so perhaps something to do with war. Warhammer, maybe?

Quote from: Rincewind1;809085The hammer part is good, but I think it should also refer to other things than just witches. In such a setting players will mostly play warriors...so perhaps something to do with war. Warhammer, maybe?

;)

Well Warhammer makes me think of a bunch of big, beefy ox-like characters clomping about in oversize boots and helmets with sledge hammers instead of actual warhammers. I was thinking of something a bit more elegant. Maybe he should go with Hexenhammer - that covers the magic aspect without being exclusively about witches.

Quote from: Will;809081You know, that would make an interesting campaign premise.

A game world where magic is forbidden and large groups, particularly clergy, will hunt them down and kill them before their power becomes unmanageable.

Dragon Age

It's been done a bunch of times in fiction. Barbara Hambly has a bunch of books along that vein (including spellcord, which nullifies a mage's power when in contact, such as binding the hands, and the sign of the void, which absorbs all magic nearby).

Really cool stuff, and often a mixed bag -- there are good mages, but also really really awful ones that inspire oppression, and some mages who hate being hunted but wonder if it might not be for the best.

I'd write it up, but right now I'm absorbed in making a web comic.

Quote from: Premier;808873"Plenty" is a rather subjective term, so maybe it wasn't the best choice of words on his part. But that aside, you do know and acknowledge that bears still exist in Europe, roughly 55,000 of them; and that contrarily to your earlier absolute claim were NOT completely wiped out by the Romans, right? RIGHT?

I did acknowledge that my original assertion was wrong, yes. I admit I didn't simply prostrate myself on the altar of humiliation in shame, so that might not have been clear.

I will note that most/many (pick the word you like more) of those 55k you mention live in areas that I, subconsciously I suppose, don't really consider part of Europe 'per se'*.  Given that I am a fan of the Polish Army Bear, I really should have known better than to include them for rhetorical flourish.

Is that better?  Or do I need to be more abject and ashamed?






* You know, like Russia and the former Warsaw Pact areas, and near the arctic circle where those damn viking dudes used to live.

Funniest thing in the thread is the accusation against the OP for white room solutions when the whole thread is the opposite and trying to follow the logical implications of RAW onto the game setting.

Quote from: jibbajibba;809104Funniest thing in the thread is the accusation against the OP for white room solutions when the whole thread is the opposite and trying to follow the logical implications of RAW onto the game setting.

One person's odd little view on what motivates spectres and wizards is not a logical implication of the RAW. It is one person's odd little view of what motivates spectres and wizards. The funniest thing in the thread is that the OP just doesn't understand his choices are causing his problems.

Quote from: Bren;809107One person's odd little view on what motivates spectres and wizards is not a logical implication of the RAW. It is one person's odd little view of what motivates spectres and wizards. The funniest thing in the thread is that the OP just doesn't understand his choices are causing his problems.

Um, are you saying that 'undead want to make more undead' and 'humans with vast magical power would abuse that power' are weird/fringe ideas on how spectres and wizards would act?

Quote from: Will;809109Um, are you saying that 'undead want to make more undead' and 'humans with vast magical power would abuse that power' are weird/fringe ideas on how spectres and wizards would act?

I'm saying that the scenario the OP presented is a weird fringe idea.

So are you saying pandemic spectre flu and lots of 20th level wizards with nothing better to do than fly around invisible napalming kings for kicks are a logical interpretation of the rules? Really?

Yes.

Undead almost universally are compelled to kill living creatures. It's... pretty much the trope, and most of the undead in D&D do that. (The exceptions are ... ghosts, mainly, as they are motivated by other things)

Everyone killed by a spectre becomes a spectre. Spectres spread very easily, what with the ability to pass through solid matter.

Sooo... those rules beg the question of 'why isn't the world hip-deep in spectres by now?'

Obviously there is a reason, or the world would be. So it's natural to contemplate reasons why.

Maybe spectres just don't WANT to make more spectres (vampires make more vampires, etc.). Why might that be?
Maybe there's a counterbalancing force. The gods of Light might work to provide plentiful forces to fight undead when they get out of check. Or the gods of Order (Inevitables, such as Marut). Or there is some natural force that helps. Or the gods of undeath prefer a world of life for their creations to harass, and yoke them back when they get too plentiful.


As for wizards... in many editions they gain access to godlike powers. Does it really seem weird that some noticeable fraction of humans given power to bend reality MIGHT use it to dominate the world?

Again, obviously there is a reason, or the world would be. So it's natural to contemplate reasons why.

Maybe there's a divine force to counterbalance them (again, Inevitables, such as Quarut). Or there's something about that power that leads them elsewhere, like 'why dominate this mudball when I could be ruling my own personal created dimension?' Or there is a cabal of wizards that prefer things as they are and send OTHER 20th level wizards when someone gets uppity ('You want to rule the world? We already do. Just with subtlety, you oik')


These aren't really fanciful or weird system interpretations. They rank up there with 'why does anyone bother with an army of conscripts or castles in 3e?'

Quote from: Will;809081You know, that would make an interesting campaign premise.

A game world where magic is forbidden and large groups, particularly clergy, will hunt them down and kill them before their power becomes unmanageable.

Wasnt that the premise of the Spanish Inquisition?

Quote from: Will;809117Undead almost universally are compelled to kill living creatures.

Compelled? Really? I don't recall the words "compelled to seek out and kill the living" in my game rules. Perhaps you would be so good as to point out what editions that appears in.

Or maybe you are thinking of literary inspirations like the Lord of the Rings where the barrow wights and ring wraiths made hundreds of copies of themselves to take over the world...oh wait that didn't happen either.

So this complusion to go out and kill the living is something some DMs (like you and the OP) just made up as part of their personal setting.

QuoteSooo... those rules beg the question of 'why isn't the world hip-deep in spectres by now?'

Because unlike you and the OP some DMs don't assume undead are compelled to wander about killing the living? Could that be the reason? No that sounds way too easy. It would seem like someone would have thought of that solution and mentioned it in this thread by now. :rolleyes:

QuoteAs for wizards... in many editions they gain access to godlike powers.

3E maybe. But that isn't what the OP started to discuss and frankly 3E seems notoriously easy to break. Pun Pun anyone?

Really if you want to make assumptions that lead to your game being broken it seems silly to blame the game rules rather than looking at your assumptions. Especially when your assumptions are kind of whacked.

QuoteThese aren't really fanciful or weird system interpretations.

That seem a bit weird actually. They are the sort of things we thought about as kids as setting breakers and then we moved beyond after our first year or two of playing D&D. I'm kind of gob smacked when people who ought to know better seem stuck in that same newby teenage rut.

Quote from: TristramEvans;809119Wasnt that the premise of the Spanish Inquisition?

No. They were mostly about weeding out heretics and lapsed conversos.* They weren't really big into the witch hunting. Witch hunting seems to have been more popular in northern and western Europe.

* Which could also be financially profitable to those in power. Not surprisingly a lot of witch hysteria also had financial motives as well.

You know what, I had been up until now hoping that Bren's contrarian unproductive piss-taking in every thread recently was a series of bad days or something, and now I'm just going to have to write him off as a dishonest time-suck.

Get bent.

Quote from: Doom;809056While this is generally a good point, quite a number of old school adventures had some sort of paragraph in them about "certain spells won't work in this dungeon, due to [input Gygaxian penetration justification here]".

I really think it's understood that most significant defensive structures in D&D-land will have appropriate defenses built in to them. Yes, players don't see these defenses as spells in the PHB, but invisibilty-nullificaiton-3000-yard radius has a casting time of 6 months, and material components of a 6 ton slab of granite, among other things that just didn't seem worth putting in the PBH.

Most DMs that I've seen haven't assumed this. If a module said "X spells won't work here" - that was generally assumed to be a natural property of the area, or perhaps a long-lost ritual or divine effect, not something that a king or duke could easily commission. There have been lots of city modules where this isn't true of the defensive structures.

If there is a magic system, somewhere in the rules or background there should be description of what can be done with magic. If not in the player list of spells, then at least in the GM section on magic. How common things like invisibility-nullification are can be pretty important to both how the GM designs adventures and how players choose their spells and tactics.

Quote from: Bren;809111I'm saying that the scenario the OP presented is a weird fringe idea.

So are you saying pandemic spectre flu and lots of 20th level wizards with nothing better to do than fly around invisible napalming kings for kicks are a logical interpretation of the rules? Really?

While I don't agree with much of the OP's points, I would say that they are attempts at logical consequences to the world from having magic and monsters.

A lot of responses came across to me as empty denials. The point should be: what are the logical consequences of having a particular system's magic and monsters in the world?  How would it differ from the real world?  

Easily-reproducing monsters like spectres, werewolves and vampires do inherently have an issue for consistency. What happens, say, if a single werewolf escapes from the PCs attack? Could it go to the next town and convert dozens of people within a few days? If not, what is the mechanism that prevents this?

Quote from: jhkim;809140Most DMs that I've seen haven't assumed this. If a module said "X spells won't work here" - that was generally assumed to be a natural property of the area, or perhaps a long-lost ritual or divine effect, not something that a king or duke could easily commission. There have been lots of city modules where this isn't true of the defensive structures.

We went beyond lead to block scrying and had anti-teleport structures, and researched a number of defensive spells. And had a lot of arguments about what magic mouths could detect.

QuoteWhile I don't agree with much of the OP's points, I would say that they are attempts at logical consequences to the world from having magic and monsters.

A lot of responses came across to me as empty denials. The point should be: what are the logical consequences of having a particular system's magic and monsters in the world?  How would it differ from the real world?  

Easily-reproducing monsters like spectres, werewolves and vampires do inherently have an issue for consistency. What happens, say, if a single werewolf escapes from the PCs attack? Could it go to the next town and convert dozens of people within a few days? If not, what is the mechanism that prevents this?

The original post presented this only as stuff to mock, not stuff to explain.

Quote from: rawma;809147The original post presented this only as stuff to mock, not stuff to explain.

Quite possibly. I'm not really interested in the intent of the poster. I just think that the consequences of these fantasy features is an interesting topic, and I'd prefer to discuss that.

Quote from: jhkim;809140Easily-reproducing monsters like spectres, werewolves and vampires do inherently have an issue for consistency. What happens, say, if a single werewolf escapes from the PCs attack? Could it go to the next town and convert dozens of people within a few days? If not, what is the mechanism that prevents this?

Fair point, I suspect if the OP had presented the question more sincerely and avoided the ridiculous caricatures of RAWWW Spectres! and TEE-HEE-HEE ZAP! Evil wizards we would have seen more productive discussions.

Two simple changes that would help avoid the reproduction plague are (1) death by undead and lycanthrope bites do not automatically result in reproduction and (2) that the new creature is not automatically a minion of their creator.

(1) If less than 100% of those killed/bitten turn into a monster the rate of reproduction is slowed. Though unless the rate is so low that it isn't really a threat you need some other restraint on the growth rate. That could be cultural/social: undead may not really want company and may want to mostly be left alone unless disturbed and lycanthropes may be terratorial like a lot of predators and may not want to create rivals for prey; they may also fear triggering a crusade of silver wielding humans to erradicate them.

If social/cultural pressure isn't enough than make the monster give up some power (levels or hit dice for instance) to create the new monster and suddenly the army of minions controlled by a very weak leader is not too attractive.

(2) Don't make the new creature automatically a minion of their creator. I think that is already the case with were creatures, but for undead allow them the ability to over throw the domination of their master. Now the spectre needs to be concerned as to whether they are in the end creating a powerful servant, a powerful rival, and potentially a new master of their own. There is certainly ample precedent for evil servants turning on their masters.

These seem like incredibly obvious solutions to me.

Quote from: Will;809138You know what, I had been up until now hoping that Bren's contrarian unproductive piss-taking in every thread recently was a series of bad days or something, and now I'm just going to have to write him off as a dishonest time-suck.

Get bent.

Ironically I was just thinking before I read this that your continual strawmanning of other's posts including mine and your unwillingness or inability to actually respond to what people write while continuing to vacuously assert the same point of view over and over has led me to think that even RPGnet gets things right once and a while.

Maybe its best to monsters that easily and quickly replicate (certain undead, lycanthropes, for example) as very very rare even one off that pop up during a campaign once or twice, outbreak style.

Or given them an off switch that doesn't require extraordinary magic. Killing the alpha werewolf cure or destroy his bloodline, salting and burning the body of a victim prevents it from rising, that sort of thing.

Some monsters might even police themselves and keep their numbers down to avoid drawing too much attention or runing out of the prey and resources. Vampires and lycanthropes, for example.

Quote from: Arohtar;809059Exactly Omega. You are starting to learn.

These weirdos were attacked during a meeting in the forest. Old Elkhorn, the master druid, was roasted by fire balls and his dead body then disintegrated.



True I think.

No. You are just failing to actually use your brain... again.

Detect Invisibility is availible at the same level as Invisibility. The psychopath wizard is going to need it too as any good aligned wizard will be sending Invisible stalkers after him 24/7. Possibly several in tandem if they get really pissed off. Mass invisibility is now availible and the killer wizard will have to deal with that too just to figure out where anyone is. And we havent even gotten out of the C part of BECMI. Dont you feel stupid... yeah, you do.

Now lets look at M. At this point clerics automatically destroy spectres and at the higher levels have a good chance to wipe out more than one in a single go. Clerics now have access to Wish and Raise Dead Fully.

Then of course theres the I part. Gods. Gods who can cause all manner of trouble for the wack job wizard without even a shrug. Oh yeah, and said wizard nut and spectres are living on a planet sized monster that if sufficiently irked can create volcanos of sufficient power to damage even gods. Not even your wish will counter that sort of firepower.

Your inconsistencies exist only because you want them to exist and deliberately ignore and wave away any counterpoint. You fail again and again.

Why doesnt XYZ take over the world? Because there are things out there that counter them at every turn.

Why castles? Because there are hoards of humanoids that are stopped by such simple things. Why taverns? Because thats how it was in the real world. Pretty much every town I've ever been to has had at least one restraunt, some having been around a hundred years or more. Saloons were common in the wild west too and those didnt even have extensive farms around. People like to gather and chat over a meal after work.

And so on.

Feel free to continue to ignore all that and dig your hole ever deeper.

Quote from: Will;809081You know, that would make an interesting campaign premise.

A game world where magic is forbidden and large groups, particularly clergy, will hunt them down and kill them before their power becomes unmanageable.

Theres been a couple over the decades. Some obscure. Some as kingdoms in established settings.

Im pretty sure Forgotten Realms, Mystarra and Greyhawk all have "no magic" kingdoms somewhere in their cannon. Outside of RPGs its been a factor in novels and other media. The TV series Merlin had that as a theme recently.

Dragon had some articles on things like "No wizard/cleric/psionic" settings or kingdoms.

Quote from: Will;809117Yes.

Undead almost universally are compelled to kill living creatures. It's... pretty much the trope, and most of the undead in D&D do that. (The exceptions are ... ghosts, mainly, as they are motivated by other things)

Thats the thing. In the rules system the OP is basing all this off of. Spectres dont want anything. They just putter around doing nothing at all BY THE RULES. Their demeanor is based on either what the DM or module writer wants them to do. Or at the whim of a dice roll in which case you can and will run into friendly undead. By the rules they are no different from meeting or adventuring with any given Chaotic PC or NPC.

You could have one peacefully running a tavern in Specularum. By the rules.
You could run into a merry band of spectral troubadours. By the rules.

That is one of the immense strengths of BX and BECMI over AD&D. Nothing was nailed down.

Fair enough, but I hope you'd grant me that 'undead go around killing living things' isn't exactly a wildly out there assumption?

Granted, the easiest 'fix' is changing that assumption.

Quote from: Bren;809199(1) If less than 100% of those killed/bitten turn into a monster the rate of reproduction is slowed. Though unless the rate is so low that it isn't really a threat you need some other restraint on the growth rate. That could be cultural/social: undead may not really want company and may want to mostly be left alone unless disturbed and lycanthropes may be terratorial like a lot of predators and may not want to create rivals for prey; they may also fear triggering a crusade of silver wielding humans to erradicate them.

If social/cultural pressure isn't enough than make the monster give up some power (levels or hit dice for instance) to create the new monster and suddenly the army of minions controlled by a very weak leader is not too attractive.

1: In BX and BECMI its automatic infection if the victem looses at least half their HP from damage from one. But. Only humans can contract it.

More interesting is that there is an entire book dedicated to BX/BECMI lycanthropes and the endeavors of one werewolf to establish a kingdom open to lycanthropes. They police themselves and have strict rules against turning people without permission. It also presents various anti-lycanthropic items and creatures including a shapechanger race that kills werewolves and form-locking magic items as well as a scenario dealing with a cleric going through the area force "curing" them.

An early edition of Dungeon had an adventure involving a plot by wererats to infect and take over a town.

Theres also a book for 3rd ed for playing undead I believe. Ghostwalk?

Quote from: Will;809237Fair enough, but I hope you'd grant me that 'undead go around killing living things' isn't exactly a wildly out there assumption?

Granted, the easiest 'fix' is changing that assumption.

Even in AD&D undead arent locked in that pattern. Theres a few examples of undead generally just wanting to hang out at their haunting grounds and can be talked out of combat. Or even undead teachers.

5e though hardcodes into some undead an "urge" to slay the living. But right out the gate modules are ignoring that and allowing for negotiating and talking with things rather than just have them as mindless killing machines.

Quote from: Omega;809218Detect Invisibility is availible at the same level as Invisibility. The psychopath wizard is going to need it too as any good aligned wizard will be sending Invisible stalkers after him 24/7. Possibly several in tandem if they get really pissed off. Mass invisibility is now availible and the killer wizard will have to deal with that too just to figure out where anyone is. And we havent even gotten out of the C part of BECMI. Dont you feel stupid... yeah, you do.

I'm not sure which game or edition you're talking about, but in my experience, Detect Invisibility spells are only useful if you already know that an invisible creature is near. They last minutes to hours and will only detect within a particular area or perhaps line-of-sight. Likewise, Invisible Stalkers aren't useful unless you have a target to direct them at.

The problem with assassins is that you don't know who they are, or where and when they will strike. While the OP was phrased poorly, I think there is an underlying truth to this.

To put a little more context to this, imagine an expanding kingdom in a fantasy world - like England conquering Ireland, or Egypt conquering Nubia. Now there are a bunch of loyal Irish or Nubian adventurers who resent the conqueror. How do you protect the leaders of the conquest, without knowing where, when, or who they will strike at? As I said, most RPG magic systems support a small band of attackers much better than they support a large group of defenders. You need full-time mages casting detection spells all the time around each of your targets, which spreads your power very thin - whereas the rebels will concentrate their forces to strike where you have the least defenses.

Quote from: jhkim;809280The problem with assassins is that you don't know who they are, or where and when they will strike. While the OP was phrased poorly, I think there is an underlying truth to this.

The problem with that idea is that there are counters to assassins too with the right prep. Detect alignment, detect poison, cure poison, etc. If we followed the OPs warped logic then in a D&D setting no one is ever assassinated because the assassin is always detected or thwarted every time.

Instead what you will get is a middle ground which isnt too far off from the various D&D settings.

Quote from: jhkim;809140While I don't agree with much of the OP's points, I would say that they are attempts at logical consequences to the world from having magic and monsters.

Quote from: rawma;809147The original post presented this only as stuff to mock, not stuff to explain.

Quote from: jhkim;809155Quite possibly. I'm not really interested in the intent of the poster. I just think that the consequences of these fantasy features is an interesting topic, and I'd prefer to discuss that.

The topic was poisoned by the original post. A different approach might have led to an interesting discussion.

Quote from: Will;809237Fair enough, but I hope you'd grant me that 'undead go around killing living things' isn't exactly a wildly out there assumption?

Granted, the easiest 'fix' is changing that assumption.

I totally buy that assumption, but it doesn't take much to see that it isn't enough.

Undead are clearly irrational, the vast majority of them.

Ghouls, for instance, obviously go around killing things, but it's hardly a stretch to think their hunger keeps them from being particularly clever at it.

Shadows, wraiths, and spectres totally hate life...but all a pretty vulnerable to dozens of villages chucking holy water (hey, remember when that was a thing?). Even if such vulnerability isn't an issue, I don't think I've ever seen "free roaming" such creatures, only stuck in tombs or under the (shaky at times) control of something more powerful.

Even if they were free roaming, and even if scads fo holy water wasn't around, who says spectres have to be rational enough to come up with a flawless plan for world domination? It's not like any game world (or at least one I'm aware of) has any examples of "the great spectre who cured cancer" or otherwise did anything particularly relevant...it's quite possible they can't plan longer than the next sunrise, not with any coherent thought.

Quote from: Doom;809384I totally buy that assumption, but it doesn't take much to see that it isn't enough.

Undead are clearly irrational, the vast majority of them.

Ghouls, for instance, obviously go around killing things, but it's hardly a stretch to think their hunger keeps them from being particularly clever at it.

Shadows, wraiths, and spectres totally hate life...but all a pretty vulnerable to dozens of villages chucking holy water (hey, remember when that was a thing?). Even if such vulnerability isn't an issue, I don't think I've ever seen "free roaming" such creatures, only stuck in tombs or under the (shaky at times) control of something more powerful.

Even if they were free roaming, and even if scads fo holy water wasn't around, who says spectres have to be rational enough to come up with a flawless plan for world domination? It's not like any game world (or at least one I'm aware of) has any examples of "the great spectre who cured cancer" or otherwise did anything particularly relevant...it's quite possible they can't plan longer than the next sunrise, not with any coherent thought.

But we accept that mindless zombies can conquer the world but not that mindful spectres who can do all the stuff zombies can do but quicker, are immune to normal weapons and can walk through walls..... All they need is a reason mate...

Quote from: jibbajibba;809387But we accept that mindless zombies can conquer the world but not that mindful spectres who can do all the stuff zombies can do but quicker, are immune to normal weapons and can walk through walls..... All they need is a reason mate...

If your setting premise is zombies conquer the world, then we buy into that premise or we go play a different game.

If your setting premise is spectres take over the world, then we buy into that premise or we go play a different game.

If your setting premise is, I just can't think of a single reason why spectres haven't taken over the world, oh woe is me D&D must be broken, then you are a whiny unimaginative poser and we should all go play a different game.

By way of a thought experiment ....


I have been worried of late about how to reconcile my setting with what appear to be som inherent inconsistencies that emerge if you run D&D by RAW.
In particular ...

1) In D&D (various rule sets) a spectre can only be hit by magical weapons, it is close to invisible, it can fly faster than a running horse, it can kill any normal human with a single touch (double energy drain) and the victims rise the next night as new spectres. There are a number of other monster types that also have the ability to reproduce easily(vampires, lycanthropes etc) and overpower mundane populations.
Given the existence of these creatures, the generally accepted mundane nature (ie no classes) of the majority of the population how do explain over a long timeline that such creatures haven't risen to a dominant position, like Zombies in World War Z or "Vampires" in I am Legend.



2) In a world where magic is real and palpable. Where there are flying enemies, dragons that breathe fire from the heavens and so forth should we look to alter the standard "castle" design. Would it make more sense for fortifications in such as world to be underground. This of course gives an added benefit as it justifies the entire "dungeon" premise of underground complexes.
If we don't think the standard castle concept would change would there be design alterations? What about ritual type magic that might protect fortifications? Are there any good examples of the latter?


3) Most fantasy worlds are populated by intelligent powerful creatures, from Gith to Dragons, from Giants to Drow. With the existence of such creatures should we re-examine the reasons why Human populations dominate the game world. If they are not the smartest, toughest, fastest breeding, longest lived or have access to the most powerful tech/magic what do you use in your settings to justify the Humanocentric nature of the world?

4) Given the various different elements ar work from real gods to magic to monsters, how do you modify the typical village in your games. Do you tend to make them larger (for safety) with a palisade and a nightwatchman? Do you just follow the standard dozen house and an inn if so how do you place that in the wider context of your setting, do you have local militia policing the area for tribes of orcs and goblins for example and if so how do they react to armed PCs passing through town?

5) In your settings how do you handle large bodies of men, armies and so on. The game emerged from Wargames so these are part of its base DNA but in a world where a relatively low level wizard can destroy a small army with a well deployed gas cloud or handful of fireballs do you look to change military structures. The Black company books are a good example of a setting where there is magic so the Mercenary companies employ it as much as they can. If magic is more easy to come by, as it is presented in the generation of spell-using PCs in D&D then what is to stop a king financing a bunch of militant wizards much as a modern day military hires and trains scientists to create weapons. In modern war tech triumphs bodies everytime wouldn't this be even more true in a  world with Scry, Port , Fry, Mass invisibility and Invisible Stalkers.

There are plenty more examples, from monestries not needing to grow food because of low level clerical magic to the top rulers being replaced with Dopplegangers as part of a global plot, where I am having trouble trying to fit the implications of the game world into a logical setting. I know I can just hand wave it but I am trying to be logical. I look at something like Disc World and I can see how a modern mind can create a lot of social changes and that is a world where magic is sparse and very tightly controlled.

Welcome any comments.

If the OP had been more like this... same questions different tone, would we have seem the same viseral responses and ad hominen attacks ?

Quote from: jibbajibba;809398If the OP had been more like this... same questions different tone, would we have seem the same viseral responses and ad hominen attacks ?

I don't know if you've noticed the pattern, but new posters to this site never start a thread like that.  Instead they come here, take a shit, and then start the Hog Waller.

1) Has been answered multiple ways multiple times ad nauseum. Read the thread.

2) Runequest/Glorantha has good ritual magic. Power of the rituals is based in part on the number of users. One problem is that D&D is mostly written from the perspective of what rules a GM needs to run a game for players who are a party of adventurers. It isn't focused on a game where the players are rulers who are defending themselves and their people from wandering gangs of murder hobos. If it had been written from that perspective it would undoubtably have included defensive rituals or spells to foil those sorts of threats.

One should thoughtfully consider whether the world had enough dragons flying about to render castles (which were ubiquitous in medieval times, really in lots of places those rockpiles were like 1 hex apart or less) obsolete. If there are a lot of dragons then there is some fiction where that is kind of a trope. IIR, Pern (McCafferty) and a few other books, I think maybe, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhere (H. Beam Piper) had deep caverns underground to protect people from various natural disasters. Castles as the entrance to caverns could be a solution.

3) Most fantasy worlds of my experience where the nonhumans are the most powerful are humanocentric. Glorantha is a good example. Dragons dominate the setting, not humans. Dragons obliterated one of the most powerful human Empires and exterminated all human life in the central part of the game world.

I suspect one reason humanocentric is popular in D&D is that the expectation is it is easier and more popular for players to run humans and the game is set up to run a game for players who are a party of mostly human adventurers.

4) Frequently people differentiate between the wild lands where there be monsters and the civilized (often human centric) lands where monsters are kept in check by gods, clerics, wizards, or whatnot. In the wild lands I would expect that villages and inns would be fortified in the ways that the various border regions on earth were.

5) Back when I ran D&D I assumed spell users were pretty rare which is analogous to the way Glen Cook treats spell users. They are very rare in the Black Company and Dread Empire stories - though the ones we do see have power on the order of D&D fireball tossing wizards or worse. One thing that Cook cleverly does (that D&D didn't do well) is that his wizards can screen their side defensively. So long as both sides have roughly equal magical power it mostly gets cancelled with the occassional spell splashing through with the effect of modern artillery on a formation of troops. Not surprisingly we see the troops using entrenchments to get some protection from the blasting spells. Personally I'd do something like that if I wanted wizards to be part of the battlefield. Note that Chainmail assumed wizards were artillery and they were rare - like one, two, or no magic users per side in a Chainmail Fantasy army.

6) (I added this one.) Most likely you are over thinking the whole thing.

QuoteIf the OP had been more like this... same questions different tone, would we have seem the same viseral responses and ad hominen attacks ?

Probably not until we reached the point where it was clear that the OP didn't want to change his premises. He loved his premises. At that point (and we quickly got there):

   If you break it. You fix it.

Quote from: jibbajibba;809398I have been worried of late about how to reconcile my setting with what appear to be som inherent inconsistencies that emerge if you run D&D by RAW.

why?

Quote1) a spectre /Edit for Length/ There are a number of other monster types that also have the ability to reproduce easily(vampires, lycanthropes etc) and overpower mundane populations.
ed mundane nature (ie no classes) of the majority of the population how do explain over a long timeline that such creatures haven't risen to a dominant position,

This has been covered several times, but I'll repeat myself with some addendums, because reasons.

The Undead are generally understood to lack basic human motivations, though we can make at least one exception with regards to Liches (which, generally speaking, do NOT reproduce), for Ambition.  In a Vampire Dominant setting, contrasted to Vampires Exist settings, then Vampires do generally use their reproductive ability to 'take over the world', or at least attempt it.  Otherwise we can assume they are too focused on their hunger and, perhaps looking for the reincarnation of their long lost love to consider 'world conquest', preferring only to make a handful of minions at a time.  

This lack of normal human motivations can carry over to most monsters, including lycanthropes. Note that (and I'm not bothering to check this, so feel free to correct me) Werewolves and the sort don't turn their dead victims, they need to maul one of those 'classes peasants' just hard enough to infect him, but not kill him, making 'reproduction' iffy.   Traditional takes have were creatures thinking like animals while shapechanged, though I do not believe D&D has ever bothered to reinforce this. This would be an assumed limiter on their ambitious conquest plans, as your average were-critter prefers to run wild, hunt down and kill some chump, and call it a night. Surviving chumps simply repeat the cycle, but are exceedingly rare.

Finally: Never be too quick to dismiss vast hordes of 'no-class' people armed with pitchforks and torches.  Outright immunity to all attacks is not uncommon (a failing of the D&D framework, if you ask me), but quite often there are readily accessible alternatives. Weaknesses will be known to enough people to ensure that the 'anti-specter' mob comes with holy water (stolen from the temples if necessary... cheap bastard clerics!), while anti-vampire mobs will have no shortage of wood and fire, etc. *




2) In a world where magic is real and palpable. ./edit for length/
If we don't think the standard castle concept would change would there be design alterations? What about ritual type magic that might protect fortifications? Are there any good examples of the latter?

Not necessarily. Castles may not work against high level wizards, but one flying, invisible, teleporting mage on a battlefield is not enough to change the scope of war, any more than nuclear weapons eliminate conventional ground wars.  They may alter the political calculus necessary to declare war, but that's a separate matter.  

In order to change the face of war, or the defenses necessary for its waging, it isn't enough to introduce a new technology but to make it common.  It is generally accepted that mastering even first level wizardry takes years of effort and study, and a common assumption that it also requires some sort of extraordinary trait, generally hereditary.  This holds true for clerics to a lesser extent, as most priests of most religions are generally held to be non-spellcasting NPCs.

Quote3) Most fantasy worlds are populated by intelligent powerful creatures, from Gith to Dragons, from Giants to Drow. With the existence of such creatures should we re-examine the reasons why Human populations dominate the game world. If they are not the smartest, toughest, fastest breeding, longest lived or have access to the most powerful tech/magic what do you use in your settings to justify the Humanocentric nature of the world?

For most cases, Numbers. In a few cases there are also various weaknesses as well, such as the Drow being much less capable in bright light.  Gith, and we do not have a good source for Gith Demographics that I am aware of, prefer to live extra-planar, where humans are rare.  

In most D&D settings the primary competitor for humanity are the Orcs, as they are stronger and breed faster and are as, if not more, agressive, in which case its a tough fight with humanity having the advantage of tech (generally).  Goblins make a good alternative, though generally close to, or as smart, as humans they lack group cohesion (exception for Samurai Hobgoblins).  Most of the more powerful races (dragons, Giants, etc) simply lack the numbers to compete.

Quote4) Given the various different elements ar work from real gods to magic to monsters, how do you modify the typical village in your games. Do you tend to make them larger (for safety) with a palisade and a nightwatchman? Do you just follow the standard dozen house and an inn if so how do you place that in the wider context of your setting, do you have local militia policing the area for tribes of orcs and goblins for example and if so how do they react to armed PCs passing through town?

Why should these things modify a simple village?  Palisades are a given, historically.  Generally speaking I am not aware of one set method of portraying villages that is D&D specific, but rather GM specific, depending on any number of variables, not least of which is interest in creating internally consistent portrayals of the lives of unimportant NPCs...

Quote5) In your settings how do you handle large bodies of men, armies and so on. /Edit for Length/ In modern war tech triumphs bodies everytime wouldn't this be even more true in a  world with Scry, Port , Fry, Mass invisibility and Invisible Stalkers.

In the first part: Detailed analysis of quasi-mideval tactics and strategies is not a common feature of most D&D games, even those featuring large set-piece battles.  Most GM's and Players are not interested in the fact that placing your veteran soldiers on the left most column of your phalanx is important to keep the greener soldiers from shifting to the left, causing the unit to drift out of formation.   We can assume any number of things, such as the tendency of any given army to field as many mages/counter-magics as they can afford, with the various mages on each side mostly fighting each other instead of slaughtering the soldiery.

As for your second part. Lol.  Bodies tend to triumph over tech within a fairly wide margin of error. See Russia in WWII for a recent example of this.  The general expression for this phenomenon is "Quantity is a Quality of its own".

QuoteThere are plenty more examples, from monestries not needing to grow food because of low level clerical magic to the top rulers being replaced with Dopplegangers as part of a global plot, /Edit for Length/

The mere EXISTANCE of magic or various monsters does not necessitate vast changes to a setting.  The PREVALENCE of those magics/monstrosities might.  Beyond that: monasteries generally did a lot of things that had nothing to do with base survival. One assumes that boredom is not considered in and of itself a holy state of mind.  That said: you assume suffient high level casters constantly producing vast quantities of magical food and water to elminate the need for basic farming. An interesting idea to build a setting around, but generally not necessary simply because the spell exists.  One can presume that if clerics ever threaten the existance of farming there will be holy wars as the gods of agriculture begin both denying their own clerics that particular spell, and also demanding their followers stop clerics of other gods from casting it.

Ditto Dopplegangers.  The mere existance of a monster that can and does steal peoples identities does not necessitate vast measures to prevent them from taking over kingdoms. We can assume most kings are not regularly exposed to dopplegangers any more than they are routinely exposed to muggers, and for similar reasons.  Assuming sufficient threat there may be simple tests to keep potential dopplegangers away, but only a regular recurrance of doppleganger soveriegns would truly cause a major alteration in the setting, rather like choosing to run a 'zombie apocalypse' game alters a setting. You would be CHOOSING to run 'Doppleganger Apocalypse, the RPG.

QuoteWelcome any comments.

Well, here you go.

QuoteIf the OP had been more like this... same questions different tone, would we have seem the same viseral responses and ad hominen attacks ?

With the same questions he posted? Nah. They alone pretty much set the tone, based on their repeated use by a certain segment of...dare I say "lawncrappers"...

Speaking of Lycanthropes, I had a funny RAW idea from 3e while musing on ideas for conflicts between LG groups.

In it, there are natural lycanthropes (born that way, full control of shifting) and infected lycanthropes.

And then I had an inspiration...

Werebears are inherently LG. So you could have werebear paladins (holy panzerbjorn!)
Who... can make other people into werebears by biting them. Thus making them... LG... ! Ding!

So imagine a plague of LG paladin werebears seeking to unify the world by biting everyone.

Quote from: Will;809423Werebears are inherently LG. So you could have werebear paladins (holy panzerbjorn!)
Who... can make other people into werebears by biting them. Thus making them... LG... ! Ding!

So imagine a plague of LG paladin werebears seeking to unify the world by biting everyone.

That one has come up a few times before. Werebears saving the world by bearifying everyone they can lay paws on.

See my comment on the reverse of that. A helpful cleric going through a werewolf kingdom curing people.

Usually though infection in literature and even movies tends to be more often  accidental than deliberate.

Quote from: Omega;809445That one has come up a few times before. Werebears saving the world by bearifying everyone they can lay paws on.

Seriously? Huh! Cool.

Quote from: jibbajibba;809398I have been worried of late about how to reconcile my setting with what appear to be som inherent inconsistencies that emerge if you run D&D by RAW.

I think you're supposed to say "A friend of mine has been worried of late ...".

QuoteIf the OP had been more like this... same questions different tone, would we have seem the same viseral responses and ad hominen attacks ?

It would have gone better, but I expect that most of the same points would be made:

• It's your world, so it's up to you to make it how you want.
• You can always fall back on gods or other comparably powerful forces.
• The rules as written include other elements that are not consistent with your arguments; for example, specters cannot by RAW appear in numbers larger than, what, 12 - much less than the numbers of zombies in World War Z.

D&D as written is SUPPOSED to have inconsistencies.

"It's just a stupid game."  -- Gygax and Arneson

Quote from: Old Geezer;809473D&D as written is SUPPOSED to have inconsistencies.

"It's just a stupid game."  -- Gygax and Arneson

Which makes their "soap opera" with each other even more lip-smacking delicious.

Quote from: Sommerjon;809476Which makes their "soap opera" with each other even more lip-smacking delicious.

The soap opera wasn't about the game...it was about the money.

Quote from: Doom;809586The soap opera wasn't about the game...it was about the money.

Think about it....

Quote from: Old Geezer;809473D&D as written is SUPPOSED to have inconsistencies.

"It's just a stupid game."  -- Gygax and Arneson

Its still fairly cohesive despite, or because of that.

Wasnt it you who recounted the encounter with orcs or some other whatsit that is usually considered evil, that werent the bad guys that day?

Quote from: Old Geezer;809473D&D as written is SUPPOSED to have inconsistencies.

"It's just a stupid game."  -- Gygax and Arneson

I agree, and I think that this is a much better answer than trying to disprove any given inconsistency. It's OK for a game (or book) to have some inconsistencies, and indeed can be part of the fun.

It's pretty rare in any of books, movies, and games for the creator to really follow through on all consequences of the premises. There is hard sci-fi that tries to do this, but the vast majority of fantasy worlds come up with what the world is supposed to be like first - and then throw in different kinds of magic and monsters to spice it up. To get consistency, you have to come up with Trek-isms like powerful beings working behind the scenes to keep the world the way it is supposed to be.

Quote from: jhkim;809641I agree, and I think that this is a much better answer than trying to disprove any given inconsistency. It's OK for a game (or book) to have some inconsistencies, and indeed can be part of the fun.

It's pretty rare in any of books, movies, and games for the creator to really follow through on all consequences of the premises. There is hard sci-fi that tries to do this, but the vast majority of fantasy worlds come up with what the world is supposed to be like first - and then throw in different kinds of magic and monsters to spice it up. To get consistency, you have to come up with Trek-isms like powerful beings working behind the scenes to keep the world the way it is supposed to be.

Yeah, that was what initially attracted me to RPGs as a kid...the interactive part of it. These big tombs of random rules from the 80s that you had to parse together like some sort of archaeo-linguistic puzzle. Especially with the casual use of wargame terminology and unexplained redefining of words. It was a hobby that ignited and springboarded my imagination, not just handed me a finished product of someone else' creativity.

Quote from: jhkim;809641To get consistency, you have to come up with Trek-isms like powerful beings working behind the scenes to keep the world the way it is supposed to be.

Now I want a fantasy equivalent of Redshirts. (Is there a good one?)

Quote from: rawma;809730Now I want a fantasy equivalent of Redshirts. (Is there a good one?)

Skavenslaves

Quote from: rawma;809730Now I want a fantasy equivalent of Redshirts. (Is there a good one?)

Goblins.

Quote from: rawma;809730Now I want a fantasy equivalent of Redshirts. (Is there a good one?)

Spear-carriers.

Serious, non-rhetorical question: is there ANY fantasy setting that is consistent?

Quote from: Brad;809767Serious, non-rhetorical question: is there ANY fantasy setting that is consistent?

I'd say that Glorantha (pick a version) could be said to be self-consistent. Of course as Glorantha has developed the creator has strongly embraced subjectivity to that point that almost any inconsistency could be argued to be subjectively consistent and all consistency could be argued to be subjectively inconsistent.

When I think of consistency in a setting I think of a setting without internal contradications. What defintion of consistent are you suggesting we use?

Quote from: Bren;809769When I think of consistency in a setting I think of a setting without internal contradications. What defintion of consistent are you suggesting we use?

Sure. I think the issue I'm having with this whole conversation is with the assumption that consistent means, unless it isn't explicitly stated, use whatever makes sense in the real world. Not by you, just in general. You can extrapolate all sorts of stupid crap if you think in real-world terms about how dragons exist, even though Middle Earth might operate on completely different physics. That sort of thing...

Quote from: Brad;809767Serious, non-rhetorical question: is there ANY fantasy setting that is consistent?

Perhaps not 100%, but there are ones more consistent than others, as well as there's an issue of consistency regarding emulation of genre rather than the world itself, which, of course, is a whole another bowl of stew as well.

Stuff that is more realistic and has less overwhelming magic has better odds, mainly because you can crib off of 'what happened in real life,' but you have to be knowledgeable enough to pull that off.

Quote from: Brad;809767Serious, non-rhetorical question: is there ANY fantasy setting that is consistent?

Reality isnt 100% consistent. Some fantasy worlds do the best they can.

Quote from: Brad;809773Sure. I think the issue I'm having with this whole conversation is with the assumption that consistent means, unless it isn't explicitly stated, use whatever makes sense in the real world. Not by you, just in general. You can extrapolate all sorts of stupid crap if you think in real-world terms about how dragons exist, even though Middle Earth might operate on completely different physics. That sort of thing...

Well I'd say unless explicitly contradicted by the setting "use whatever make sense in the real world" is some degree of realism. How much depends on how frequent and how global the contradictions of the setting to the real world are.

Genertela the wold of Glorantha, for example, is literally a flatish lonzenge shaped like the earth rune that floats on a sea. So one needs to be pretty darn careful what one tries to extrapolate from real world physics. On the other hand, Tolkien's Middle Earth is our earth in an earlier age. So with a few magical and fantastical exceptions (like elves and dragons), most things work the same as they do in reality.

Quote from: Brad;809767Serious, non-rhetorical question: is there ANY fantasy setting that is consistent?

Setting? Quite a few. Greyhawk, even Forgotten Realms for all its dickery is fairly thought out as to why certain things happen.

Tekumel was pretty well laid out too   once you knew how all the gears meshed, and there were alot of gears to that.

Even Warhammer has a screwed up consistency within the setting. Theres actually a valid reason for all those dungeons so oft situated in mountains. Former dwarf cities.

The problem is when you take one element and look at it without taking into account everything else that impacts or counters it.

IE: Goblins are in some settings depicted quite prolific. So why dont they overrum everything else? Well taken all by themselves in the white room of love they WILL overrun everything. They dont because they are also one of the weakest races around usually (5e has buffed them up a bit) In AD&D you could literally mow several of them down in a single blow sometimes. They are also usually depicted as generally disorganized and fractious.

For setting consistency, I think Harn is reasonably consistent - and was built very much looking at consequences of various influences.

Quote from: Arohtar;808758To imagine the military (and political) consequences of magic users with fly, invisibility and fire ball.

I think it could be somewhat funny to let a high level party of magic users and clerics 'break' the fantasy world. To let them use their power for themselves, not on some dungeon monsters in a remote mountain range.

The Duke Stephan of Karameikos steps forward and speaks with his noble voice: "Adventurers, you have done well." *BOOOOM* The blackened body of the duke slams to the ground with a rattle from the armor. Two simultaneous 20d6 fire balls from party magic users killed the F18 instantly. Ten seconds later the body rises. Muffled words of "brain" can be heard from inside the helmet. The crowd of onlookers flee screaming in all directions from the zombie.

Well, amusingly given your example, Mystara was one of the few D&D settings to even try to consider those kinds of questions.  Not that it did in a way that was really 'realistic' in any sense, but the effort was there.

Quote from: Spike;809100I will note that most/many (pick the word you like more) of those 55k you mention live in areas that I, subconsciously I suppose, don't really consider part of Europe 'per se'*.  Given that I am a fan of the Polish Army Bear, I really should have known better than to include them for rhetorical flourish.






* You know, like Russia and the former Warsaw Pact areas, and near the arctic circle where those damn viking dudes used to live.

Poland is a part of Europe; though Russia isn't really. Europe ends at the Vistula, culturally speaking.

However, I should note that Wojtek, while serving in the Free Polish forces, was not originally a Polish bear.  The unit he was connected to picked him up while they were stationed in British Palestine, if I recall correctly.

Quote from: RPGPundit;811118Poland is a part of Europe; though Russia isn't really. Europe ends at the Vistula, culturally speaking.

That isn't even remotely correct. Historically speaking, not even for Poland (just look up the borders of the Rzeczpospolita). The eastern borders of Europe, as badly defined as they are, are basically the Ural Mountains, the Ural River and the Caucasus. Russia spreads across two continents, but the vast majority of the population lives in the European part of the Russian Federation, and, also historically speaking, with the collapse of the Golden Horde Khanate and the coronation of Ivan the Terrible, Russia was one of the European "wing powers" (the eastern counterpart to first Spain, and later England in the West).

Quote from: Beagle;811139That isn't even remotely correct. Historically speaking, not even for Poland (just look up the borders of the Rzeczpospolita). The eastern borders of Europe, as badly defined as they are, are basically the Ural Mountains, the Ural River and the Caucasus. Russia spreads across two continents, but the vast majority of the population lives in the European part of the Russian Federation, and, also historically speaking, with the collapse of the Golden Horde Khanate and the coronation of Ivan the Terrible, Russia was one of the European "wing powers" (the eastern counterpart to first Spain, and later England in the West).

Even so, it's an old Polish saying, and for good reason.  Russian LOOK like they have European culture, but for the most part its a sham. They went from tribal barbarians to serfs to communists; for them, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were just things that happened to other people.