Quote from: obryn;318152They don't simulate a damn thing, and I'm not going to pretend they have some objective existence as free-roaming minions out in the world. If I treat them as anything other than a game construct designed for cinematic fights, I'd be acting ridiculous.

Can the one-true-wayism.

You like minions and the cinematic style that they enable; fine. Doing so does not require you to shit on the ideals of those who enjoy some sense of simulation in their games.

QuoteBesides, if I lay out a map and there's a few big guys and then a bunch of unnumbered identical minis, they figure it out anyway. I don't even need to get to minis. ... The math is not hard to figure out, and frankly pretending otherwise bores me.

The approach to such an encounter becomes vastly different. Minions are not respectable opponents; there is no danger there, unless you do not have the appropriate tools for dealing with them (and I have difficulty envisioning an experienced 4e group not having a means to do so).

The players - and the characters - should not be able to readily put themselves into such a metagame mindset. Judging opponents by their gear and general appearance is one thing; but demons and devils being minions?

All I know is that the "cinematic" approach bothers the hell out of me. Creatures like demons and devils should never be given a quick glance and responded to with "they're just minions." The players should not be told outright that something they're facing will die to a single hit; they should be approaching each encounter with caution, with the understanding that any creature they encounter may not put up that much of a fight or may end the entire party without breaking a sweat.

Quote from: GnomeWorksCan the one-true-wayism... Doing so does not require you to shit on the ideals of those who enjoy some sense of simulation in their games.

Yeah, there was none of that going on in this thread before obryn showed up!

Quote from: obryn;318154Now, I can see how folks might hate that.  I love it, but I can't fault people for disliking it.

That, sir, is entirely reasonable of you.

The rules for minions in fourth edition just don't "gel", for me. I could try and make them work as DM, along with the many other things that bother me, but to what end? [<- rhetorical] There are already RPGs out there that do what I want them to, or are so much closer to it.

Players expecting to see "minion t-shirts" would be the last straw, I'm fairly sure. I'm not usually prone to violence or coming apart at the seams, but...

Quote from: jeff37923;318147I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I have to wonder if a deal was or was not struck between WoTC and these guys to act as a "public face" of 4E.

I tend not to think that at all. They're all pretty smart, and, most importantly, have established themselves as anti-establishment, and the risk that they'd sell-out like that has to have occurred to them. Mike/Gabe of Penny Arcade went from an avowed disdainer of tabletop RPGs to now DMing a 4e campaign after those podcasts, and I'm just not seeing any insincerity in his various campaign updates - look for his August 4th update here. I get the feeling that WotC was actually confident enough in 4e to let them have a go at it - I mean, really, it's a good game, despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Were they compensated for their time in doing the podcasts? I'd guess they were, but enough to make them completely sell out? I doubt it.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;318157Can the one-true-wayism.

You like minions and the cinematic style that they enable; fine. Doing so does not require you to shit on the ideals of those who enjoy some sense of simulation in their games.

WTF?  Where did I say anything even remotely like that?  Can the knee-jerk reactions and reply to something I actually said.

Or did the way I describe how I treat minions in my own game offend you deeply?

QuoteThe approach to such an encounter becomes vastly different. Minions are not respectable opponents; there is no danger there, unless you do not have the appropriate tools for dealing with them (and I have difficulty envisioning an experienced 4e group not having a means to do so).

They are dramatically overvalued under the 4e rules so far, past level 2 or 3.  Frankly, they are not worth 1/4 a creature.  So no, they are not a threat by RAW.  In my own games, I either halve their XP value; or give them damage resistance + a bloodied state.  I love minions, but I don't think they were implemented perfectly.

QuoteThe players - and the characters - should not be able to readily put themselves into such a metagame mindset. Judging opponents by their gear and general appearance is one thing; but demons and devils being minions?

All I know is that the "cinematic" approach bothers the hell out of me. Creatures like demons and devils should never be given a quick glance and responded to with "they're just minions." The players should not be told outright that something they're facing will die to a single hit; they should be approaching each encounter with caution, with the understanding that any creature they encounter may not put up that much of a fight or may end the entire party without breaking a sweat.

Whatever floats your boat - seriously.  Like I've said over and over again, and like you seem to have missed, I can understand how people might not like minions.  They are cinematic, and if you don't like cinematic combat, you should not use them.  By the same token, if you want simulation in your game, you should probably not use them, because they make zero simulation sense.

-O

Quote from: paris80;318161That, sir, is entirely reasonable of you.

The rules for minions in fourth edition just don't "gel", for me. I could try and make them work as DM, along with the many other things that bother me, but to what end? [<- rhetorical] There are already RPGs out there that do what I want them to, or are so much closer to it.

Players expecting to see "minion t-shirts" would be the last straw, I'm fairly sure. I'm not usually prone to violence or coming apart at the seams, but...

Oh, absolutely!

FWIW, I have yet to find any RPG which scratches all my gaming itches.  I don't think one can exist.  I'm running a 1e game for that oldschool flavor, a d20 Call of Cthulhu game for immersive roleplaying and great horror, and a 4e game for some awesome dungeon crawling and monster bashing.  All of them fit into what I want out of gaming, but do different things both better and worse than each other.

I absolutely don't think anyone should waste time running a game they don't like.  Now, I do think everyone should give new and different games a shot before dismissing them out of hand, but simply put, 4e isn't a good fit for everyone.  I'm glad it works for my groups; we're having fun with it.  But this idea that anyone expects anyone else to have only the same kind of fun as they themselves are having ... well, it wearies me.

-O

Quote from: paris80;318151FATAL is totally fucking batshit insane. Fourth edition D&D is distasteful... to me. BIG difference.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "distasteful," then. I mean, to me, 4e is still D&D, and builds upon various game elements I've seen since the late 70s/early 80s. Some stuff is new, sure, though a lot of it is derived from other RPGs (such as minions themselves) and making non-spell abilities into spell-like powers mechanically is a big change, but I can't quite see how all that could be distasteful. Different, sure. I guess if you mean "not to my taste," then I can get that. It's just that phrase and "distasteful" carry different connotations.

Quote from: paris80;3181510-level NPCs, goblins and kobolds are _low-level monsters_. Minions in fourth edition needn't be, if my understanding of those rules is correct (to a sufficient extent at least). So, you could have a demon minion, an ogre minion, a dragon minion(?) and whatever else, correct? Again, BIG difference.

Hmmm. While I see the difference you're pointing out, I have to admit that I don't see it as all that big, and I don't see it as veering far from the spirit of D&D from earlier eras. I distinctly recall high enough level PCs with proper equipment taking out fire giants in one or two swipes in 1e. Certainly ogres went down like that when we hit 8th level and up. At such high levels, critters like that are often "eggs with hammers" anyway, and making them into one-hit monsters (with high ACs, by the way, making them durable enough to cause real damage) doesn't seem too outlandish to me, even in the context of earlier versions of D&D. It just saves a bit of paperwork for the DM.

Quote from: paris80;318151You might well be right. As I said, for all I know, it might have been an issue (or non-issue for some) for any amount of time before 4e's release.

4e can play like whatever era of D&D wants. I know, because it felt like classic D&D to me when I ran it. So it's more how the designers have gone about showcasing elements of the game, rather than those elements themselves. Personally, I think they've done their game a disservice in doing so.

this is the same sort of visual cue a player in a MMORPG is used to.  

The monster should clearly be identified, with the name/type/rarity floating over it, color-coding to identify the threat level, and a health bar.  

these are the expectations you're dealing with now.

Quote from: obryn;318164WTF?  Where did I say anything even remotely like that?  Can the knee-jerk reactions and reply to something I actually said.

Eh. I considered modifying my post, as your other posts sounded like you were more reasonable than the post I quoted was indicating.

You may not be as big of a dick as my response would seem to take you for. If so, my apologies.

QuoteOr did the way I describe how I treat minions in my own game offend you deeply?

Yes, actually, it did irk me.

Also, you double-space between sentences. That's also irking me, but unrelated to why I went off on you.

QuoteThey are dramatically overvalued under the 4e rules so far, past level 2 or 3. Frankly, they are not worth 1/4 a creature.

I figured the powers that did automatic damage would lead to that kind of problem.

QuoteSo no, they are not a threat by RAW. In my own games, I either halve their XP value; or give them damage resistance + a bloodied state. I love minions, but I don't think they were implemented perfectly.

What do you mean, give them DR + "a bloodied state"?

Unless you're giving them sufficient DR to ignore the majority of the auto-damage powers... though there are a large number of them, and some of them are capable of crazy damage.

QuoteWhatever floats your boat - seriously.  Like I've said over and over again, and like you seem to have missed, I can understand how people might not like minions.  They are cinematic, and if you don't like cinematic combat, you should not use them.  By the same token, if you want simulation in your game, you should probably not use them, because they make zero simulation sense.

This is a sensible thing you have said...

Hmm... alright, a reread of your post that I quoted does indicate that there is a reading that is more favorable for you than how I initially read it. My apologies. I will admit that I am ridiculously defensive when it comes to simulation-style gaming, particularly because that viewpoint gets a lot of crap from folks.

This has nothing to do with MMORPGs and everything to do with denying players knowledge that thier characters would have or details that thier characters would immediately perceive. Seriously, if at 9th level, a character cannot tell if a kobold is just a kobold or a genuine bad-ass; either the kobold is a really great actor or the GM is deciding to throw his players a nilbog and that is CRAP.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;318178This has nothing to do with MMORPGs and everything to do with denying players knowledge that thier characters would have or details that thier characters would immediately perceive.

How is a metagame concept - like how many hit points a creature has - something that a character would perceive?

I'll give you that lower-level critters, like goblins or kobolds, may give away their minion status by virtue of their equipment. But ogres? Demons or devils?

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;318170I guess I don't understand what you mean by "distasteful," then.

Don't ignore the "to me" part, please.

For example, this:

Quote from: ColonelHardissonI mean, to me, 4e is still D&D, and builds upon various game elements I've seen since the late 70s/early 80s.

... is perfectly fine, yes? Well, of course it is - you wrote it! You see what I mean, though.

I began with "I find" [4e distasteful, or whatever] the first time, and the second time, followed a similar statement with "to me". This is because I am not sufficiently delusional to see my distaste as universal, and neither do I believe my overall perspective to be objective.

So, when I (or yourself) states that such and such is so, "to me", everything is right in the [my] world. Whereas, when you said that "[4e] is a good game (...)" (i.e., objectively so), followed by something to do with whining and gnashing of teeth (or thereabouts), there is a distinctly different tone at play. Wouldn't you say?

Quote from: obryn;318154No, that's 100% true.  I'd argue that a kobold, goblin, or human minion is functionally identical to a sub-1-HD creature in 1e.  Higher-level minions are new and different - they've never been in D&D before.  They exist to allow for more cinematic fights, and if you don't want that, you shouldn't use them.

Which is fine.  Frankly, you could run 4e up through immortality and never use a minion, and the game would still work just fine.

The way higher-level minions tend to work is something like this....

We have an Ogre.  He's a Level 8 brute, which means five of him is a good match for a Level 8 party.  We also have tougher ogres and weaker ogres, but he's the regular old ogre you might expect.

By the time you hit 16th level, you have the Ogre Bludgeoneer.  He's a minion, but fundamentally he's the same kind of guy as the other ogre.  Only, by the time adventurers are 16th level, those lower-level ogres make for a shitty fight because of the way 4e's math scales.  The ogre bludgeoneer is basically that other ogre, but tougher to hit, with a better attack bonus, and, critically, only 1 HP.  So by the time you get a few more levels under your belt, those ogres you faced before are no longer any big deal; they're pretty much wusses.  As a tradeoff for having no HPs, they get better attack bonuses and defenses.  It's hardly a fair trade, though - they're still basically wusses.

Now, I can see how folks might hate that.  I love it, but I can't fault people for disliking it.

-O

Exactly. As I was trying to explain above, though, minions like that aren't terribly different from their earlier edition ancestors. I mean, ogres in 1e were 4+1 hit dice (believe me, I had their stats memorized for a long time, being a DM of 1e for a long time), and they weren't too much of a threat (individually) to a couple of well-equipped 1st level characters. By the time the PCs were 3rd or 4th level, ogres were only effective only in numbers, and there really was no way to scale them up with the 1e rules as written - they went down with one hit to all but the wussiest PC. Well, you could equip them better, but that seems much like what you illustrated with your explanation of ogre minions. And thus, I don't see much of a difference in minions and their 1e counterparts - it's just that the game designers were being frank about the situation: they saw no reason to go through the pretense of giving them all different hit points, when any suitably equipped PCs are gonna take them out with one hit, anyway.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;318175You may not be as big of a dick as my response would seem to take you for. If so, my apologies.

Brace yourself for disappointment. Obryn's schtick is stalking people across the internet to hurl abuse at them, completely unrelated to gaming.  Then he'll run to CM so a few fatbeards who never moved on from high school can pat him on the head for his cleverness.
Posted in Mobile Mode

Quote from: paris80;318182Don't ignore the "to me" part, please.

For example, this: ... is perfectly fine, yes? Well, of course it is - you wrote it! You see what I mean, though.

I began with "I find" [4e distasteful, or whatever] the first time, and the second time, followed a similar statement with "to me". This is because I am not sufficiently delusional to see my distaste as universal, and neither do I believe my overall perspective to be objective.

So, when I (or yourself) states that such and such is so, "to me", everything is right in the [my] world. Whereas, when you said that "[4e] is a good game (...)" (i.e., objectively so), followed by something to do with whining and gnashing of teeth (or thereabouts), there is a distinctly different tone at play. Wouldn't you say?

See, I think you don't quite see what I'm getting at. Please don't leave out this bit of what I was saying above, which I feel is most relevant: I guess if you mean "not to my taste," then I can get that. It's just that phrase and "distasteful" carry different connotations. All I need to know is if you use those terms interchangeably, and then I have my answer, and there is no argument.