General Discussion

[DangerousPuhson]

It is a counterpoint to those in the OSR who hold Gygax' work up as an example of not balancing encounters or scenarios, if he consciously provided the means for clever players to level the playing field. It is also a statement of why factions, for instance, are useful in play, and if you keep that in your head, you can design your factions ensure that such leveling is possible.

Very interesting point, though it begs more questions.

If the raison-d'etre of factions is in being leveraged in asymmetric adventures to overcome superior opponents (i.e. Gygaxian Fortresses), then why are we holding it against symmetric (i.e. level-bound) adventures for omitting them as if they were deliberately omitting a key component required for good play? That is to say, why have we all collectively decided that factions are mandatory to good adventure, if their purpose is mostly attached to asymmetric play (which is just a specific style of adventure)?

 

[The Heretic]

Very interesting point, though it begs more questions.

If the raison-d'etre of factions is in being leveraged in asymmetric adventures to overcome superior opponents (i.e. Gygaxian Fortresses), then why are we holding it against symmetric (i.e. level-bound) adventures for omitting them as if they were deliberately omitting a key component required for good play? That is to say, why have we all collectively decided that factions are mandatory to good adventure, if their purpose is mostly attached to asymmetric play (which is just a specific style of adventure)?

That's easy. Factions offer the opportunity for roleplaying, even if they are not necessary to balance the adventure.


The Heretic

 

[DangerousPuhson]

That's easy. Factions offer the opportunity for roleplaying, even if they are not necessary to balance the adventure.

In a game world that can spawn infinite NPCs and where you can magically speak with plants/stones/animals, roleplaying opportunities are limited only by the DM's whim.

 

[Beoric]

Very interesting point, though it begs more questions.

If the raison-d'etre of factions is in being leveraged in asymmetric adventures to overcome superior opponents (i.e. Gygaxian Fortresses), then why are we holding it against symmetric (i.e. level-bound) adventures for omitting them as if they were deliberately omitting a key component required for good play? That is to say, why have we all collectively decided that factions are mandatory to good adventure, if their purpose is mostly attached to asymmetric play (which is just a specific style of adventure)?

I was going to say this, then got interrupted and forgot to send, and now @The Heretic beat me to it.

Possibly because in those sorts of adventures they provide the only social encounters, and the only reason for players to engage in social encounters. But this may also suggest that there are deficiencies in those sorts of modules for which there is not yet a good solution.

Here's the thing. It isn't enough to know that past design elements existed, in order to use them effectively, or omit them, you need to understand their function in the first place.

Take random encounters. A lot of WotC people seems to think they are good because the encounters themselves are intrinsically fun. Which they really aren't, they are supposed to be something the players want to avoid, which is why you get less XPs from them (because no treasure, and GP=XP). And then after many years of them not being fun, they get dropped entirely. And all because the designers didn't understand their purpose in the first place. It is perfectly valid not to use them if the scenario you are writing doesn't have an element of time pressure.

Also, if you know what random encounters are for, you can change the mechanic. For instance, in C1 the in-game time pressure is created by poisonous gas, which makes sense because random encounters slow down a tournament module and make it impossible for all competitors to face the same challenges.

Also - and this wasn't something I understood when I was younger - overland random encounters serve a different purpose, because you don't have the same sort of attrition game as you do in dungeons. Overland encounters are procedurally generated mini-adventure seeds. This is why you can get treasure from overland encounters, and why the ecology write-ups in the MM are so detailed. 30-300 orcs aren't there for you to fight head on, they are there for you to avoid, or infiltrate, or trade with, or steal from, or liberate slaves from, or whatever.

 

[The Heretic]

In a game world that can spawn infinite NPCs and where you can magically speak with plants/stones/animals, roleplaying opportunities are limited only by the DM's whim.

And factions in modules help facilitate that. Are factions required? No. But they can provide a lot of added value. Otherwise you just end up with combat encounter after combat encounter.

The Heretic

 

[Beoric]

And factions in modules help facilitate that. Are factions required? No. But they can provide a lot of added value. Otherwise you just end up with combat encounter after combat encounter.

The Heretic

It seems to me that, with creatures that aren't just bag-of-XPs or NPC-with-exclamation-point quest-givers, there needs to be some sort of challenge or conflict associated with it, or they aren't really gameable content. I mean, I have seen DMs who roleplay zero conflict conversations with randos, and while some people may enjoy it, I find it entirely empty (I hate small talk IRL, why would I want it in my RPG?).

To be gameable, either the creature wants something from you, or you want something from the creature. Either way, resolving that has to involve some sort of challenge, or what is the point of the game? The challenge could potentially involve something that does not involve other creatures, like natural obstacles, traps, or puzzles. But if you don't want an entire adventure based on that, then at some point you are introducing creatures that will oppose you.

Once you have a creature that wants you to do a thing, and other creatures that oppose you doing things, you effectively have factions. It is just that by default you are expected to choose a particular faction, the quest-giver, so there is no actual choice to be made.

Conversely, if you have creatures that oppose you, and you want the aid of another creature in overcoming that obstacle, and that creature previously had no beef with your opposition, then you are essentially creating a faction. And again, if the module forces you to do so, there is no choice here.

In order for there to be real agency, I think the two sets of creatures have to already have some sort of actual or potential conflict, so you have a choice over whether to pick one, both, or neither.

So yeah, I think if you want to run anything resembling the sort of games we talk about here, having actual or potential factions is a best practice. And maybe the limitlessness of the human imagination come come up with something different, but I'm not going to assume it has done so until someone gives me an example.

 

[squeen]

The article had some good points, and nice historical context. As written, it was too long winded.

For design, I quite agree with the "commando raid" notion, and have (as you all well know) been a fan of PC as hero rather than superhero. The best part for me was this:

The adventure offers a foe who is likely too powerful for the party to confront head-on and instead the players seek to both weaken that foe and reach their goals without starting a set-piece battle. This usually involves infiltration, avoiding raising the alarm, but much like a well nuanced understanding of the OSR maxim that “combat is a fail state”, combat and triggering the alarm are inevitable, even if undesirable … the players’ luck eventually runs out and the fortress will rise against them. With the alarm raised the players’ experience of the adventure shifts. It loses any exploration elements and becomes a dramatic race or running battle. As the enemy marshals and begins to hunt the party, the players have to decide to push on to their goal, make a stand, or flee to safety with whatever they have achieved. The success of any of these plans will be largely determined by the amount of sabotage, planning, and assassination that the party has accomplished before the alarm.

This is 100% how we always played (and it ends up, how I prefer to play even today---thanks @EOTB!). I'm not against combat, but I recall that direct assault rarely works out and that we needed to: be stealthy, do recognizance, avoid patrols, set tactical traps, and (most importantly) get ready to run when the alarm eventually was raised. Gus does us all a service to recall all of that near the top of the article. The "commando-raid" is a powerful monkier.

Spoiler: On Politics

I've long given up hope on moving the progressive minded, but I will declare this: for this run, Trump was forced to build a collation of establishment outsiders to get things over the finish line. My respect for people like RFK Jr, Elon Musk, Ron Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, JD Vance, and Vivek Ramaswamy as independent minds and articulate, critical-thinkers is absolute. All of these figures have been harassed, slandered and demonized by the legacy media---that's how you know they are outside the cabal. This election was less about Trump (although the legacy media tried hard to make it such with moronic and dangerous Hitler rhetoric) and entirely about a populists uprising against rampant government corruption in an unholy partnership with big business. The American people were being fleeced for trillions of dollars and made measurably worse off in things easy to quantify like life expectancy and debt ($34 Trillion and growing by $1trillion every 100 days!). What's more, using the template of California, we were precipitously close to becoming a one-party oligarchy, with tens of thousands of "new voters" being flown into swing states to flip them permanently. Masquarading as compassion, it was entirely political.

Miraculously, enough patriots in America recognized the looming danger and have attempted a course correction--establishing a beachhead in what will undoubtedly be a prolonged war to liberate the government agencies from capture by unscrupulous elites & special interest-groups. A party realignment has obviously happened. The old labels of Democrat and Republican are so jumbled, that all historical meanings have been lost. This is 100% about corruption & a populists feedback loop to remove the burden of government tyranny from the back of citizens---something that has been growing alarmingly in size, secrecy, and reach since WWII. If you are rooting for the Establishment (as it exists at this moment), I think you are (at best) a blind/foolish would-be-slave, or (at worst) a radical that wants to see Western Civilaztion destroyed. This is not hyperbole, and on these points I will not argue.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I bet $100 I can guess who squeen voted for (I *so* called that one, months ago!)

 

[squeen]

It is not the flex you think it is.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

It is not the flex you think it is.

Was I wrong?

 

[Malrex]

Spoiler: On what really happened (Politics)

Backs have been turned and eyes averted away from morals and ethics.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

"The Establishment is broken!"

"How so?"

"It's tyrannical and propped up by greedy insiders, wealthy elites, and rampant cronyism!"

"So what's the solution?"

"Well, first thing we do is elect a billionaire oligarch tyrant and all his rich sycophantic cronies..."

*facepalm*

 

[squeen]

@Malrex: Hard agree. Corruption is deeply embedded.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I mean one side *literally* led a coup-d'etat to overthrow the fairly-elected government recently, but whatever... vote for a twice-impeached felon, because reasons.

Very strong "the cold makes me uncomfortable so I'd better light myself on fire" vibes.

 

[squeen]

GFY

 

[DangerousPuhson]

GFY

You've already fucked us all, thanks.

 

[Beoric]

Uh, can we change the topic, guys?

 

[Beoric]

Like, if I'm the one saying things are getting too political, maybe y'all crossed a line?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Uh, can we change the topic, guys?

Fine. My blood pressure needs time to come back down. I'm sleeping on it.

 

[squeen]

Spoiler: THIS IS FIGHTING CORRUPTION

MINUTES AGO:
You might think its 2024, but it's starting to feel an awful lot like 1776

x.com

x.com