This always makes me smile.
Yeah, when I read Huso's post I felt a little bit called-out. He's mentioned in a few others that the "high-level play is broken crowd" is wrong, and he aims to prove it both in his campaign and published works. As someone that has preached against rapid level-increase to prolong the low-level game AND someone who has stumbled on a new quasi-truth of "
rapid level increase quickly obsoletes your world", I felt the barbs of his words.
I recently bought a few more of Huso's published modules. I had
A Fabled City of Brass and thought it was beautifully crafted and had a fascinating quiet aesthetic about it. I bought
Geir Loe Cyn-Crul recently and have been reading through it---largely because of
@Malrex 's testimony that he found it inspiring (huge vault-like constructions beneath the earth)---but so far I am less impressed with it. It's certainly high-level: Giants, Throne of the Gods, Drow, Trolls, but also feels a bit life-less (as a aside, the way the map is chopped up in the print-version drives me a bit batty without at least one high-level view...yes, I know I can get it digital, but...). Still, it felt totally play-able just not terribly inspiring (to me), probably because I have always played (and made) dungeons of this sort. It felt a bit like that Alexanderian advice
@TerribleSorcery took to heart (about plots) that went right over my head becasue I though it was "normal D&D".
OK, to your point: the catastrophies of the Uber-Jelly---if you envision your players working through that, then I have no problem with it---only if it was a GAME OVER result would it bother me. Remember, I like "
Locks without keys". I also DO advocate what Huso is saying, and I equate it to exactly what
@EOTB calls
"Let the players win." i.e., if they do something clever, expend a precious resource, etc., don't gimp the result and let them blow-away your "big baddie/big scenario" and you as DM just need to roll with it and move on. Same deal with the reverse---let them lose too (but if the Uber-Jelly breaks the world...what will their replacements do at 1st level?).
My critique of the mithril mine came from the point of view of normalization of the exotic. If its existence in your world was in fact a "big deal", then I'm fine with it.
(Hope it's WAY deep and hard-as-hell to get to!)
OK. Back to Huso and high-level play. Can we both be right? I think
yes. Malrex can confirm, with the little bit of the very raw Earth Temple stuff I gave him---I do put big-ass game-changing artifacts in my world. Collecting them (as oppose of rapid level-gain) empowers you to tackle the big-ass threats. They have draw-backs (e.g. an evil ego), and often ownership is "for a limited-time-only" (e.g. the Hammer of the Gods). But it lets the characters wander off into the unknown (as nothings) and return as big-shots...for awhile.
In my long-running campaign, the players are now 7-9th level. They move through the world faster, and are dealing with a different level of threat (Demons, armies, witch-wraiths, drow empire), but their investment and discovery of the world was mostly at the lower (3-5th) level and slow (4-5 years). So, Huso is right---high level play works BUT I feel I am also correct:
you will have to write a completely different sort of world to challenge them (e.g. Planear travel, campaign play, deep underworld empires, etc.). I think the time spent lingering and traveling around the map as quasi "normal folk" was crucial to a slow-reveal that got the players invested in world events. There's got to be a quasi-static world situation they discover (otherwise it wouldn't persist and would instead force an immediate "story-mode" on them), and then can
DECIDE if they want to get involved in "local politics". I'm not sure I could pull that off if they arrived on the scene as members of the Justice League.
Once the PCs topple the high-level threats, the whole world changes, you start moving into the end-of-the-campaign mode that Huso mentions in an earlier post. You don't want to prevent the players from doing that---it's kinda the whole point---but if they are capable of doing that too soon (as oppose to having to avoid/dance-around/get-to-know them for a bit), then your world gets immediately used up.
That latter (high-level) world...well, I'm not sure we know what it looks like because it's so different from our own. It's a real challenge to create something that works. Read his
post about the
Dreamhouse of the Nether Prince. I want to buy it ($50!) because it a legit adventure in the Abyss against Orcus (and I want to see how that's done)...but my semi-disappointment with
Geir Loe Cyn-Crul is still too fresh.
@bryce0lynch's review was kinda spot-on, the module conveyed the tactical threat, but little else to me. Reservations aside, the description of it sounds brutal, and the PC requirements very, very, high. Scary, but cool.
In the deepest underground of my world, there is wild gonzo magic, world-shattering doomsday devices, and threats at Orcus-level. My players will get there (eventually I hope). But on the surface, I try to counter-point that with a sense of low-fantasy normality. For me that holds together better (conceptually) and works well with long-duration campaign play---when coupled with slow level advancement it creates a bubble of stability.
I wanted to savoy the full D&D experience and just not rush things. I guess that's my only point. There's a place for the fantastic/big too in my campaign, I'm just advocating patience. As most parents know, those years when they are little are SO good (the sweet-spot in life?)---and go by TOO fast.
Did I address your point?
I keep hoping my players will eventually make it to the Coast and head out onto the high sea!
