I was being ultra-simplistic for comedy only. If you want to run a game focused on the ins and outs of a city, you've got to limit progression to the point of stagnation since the only way to advance characters is to increase level. Characters can't gain knowledge and skill without large jumps in power. Eventually they have to start planehopping and whatnot or else more conventional threats quickly lose their impact. Or they get ridiculously implausible.

I understand. I agree that it is silly and crazy, and that any level-based RPG is fundamentally 'gamier', to the detriment of the 'serious' roleplaying aspect. I'm just saying that it still functions in certain cases. It just requires a story that accepts significant world-hopping. If you start from the premise that you don't want any of that, it's certainly true that the PCs outgrow everything, and fast. I also agree that games like Shadowrun are much 'flatter', with the LoneStar cop remaining a threat much longer/forever. I think a big part of it is just the level-based side; swapping that for Karma might go a long way.

Honestly I have NEVER found lonestar a challenge. those guys are chumps. Course I also play Adepts almost exclusively.

If you really want to harp on D&D's level mechanic, look at rewards.

A +1 suit of armor costs 1000 gp. That's not that much is it?

Except that it's 1000 years worth of expendable income for a farmer.

Hehe, Kronk2, it depends on what you mean by 'a challenge'. They are indeed chumps.

Lone Star isn't a challenge until you critically glitch your reaction roll and take 7P damage in the face. It'd be rare for a single LS cop to take down a semi-competent runner, but that doesn't mean an acceptable tactic is to thumb your nose at them in a firefight.

The other day I had a LS marshal fire out of a moving prisoner transport van to hit the driver of my team's car for 4S, all said and done. Elf with Low Pain Tolerance, so it screwed him up pretty bad for future vehicle tests. Led directly to the team's gunner having to take out a pursuit vehicle with a lucky burst from an Ares Alpha, in the middle of a rain storm on the highway.

Exactly. They still have guns and commlinks.

I have played DnD/AD&D/DnD Since its inception... How about you?

No, not what I said Muspelheimr...

I use DnD Edition 3.5 with the Black COmpany Setting in a Harn World Environment... The rules (DnD 3.5 and the Black Company Setting) are unchanged from the rules in the Book, other than the Changes imposed by Black Company. As Such, it is NOT modified in any way from there. Epicedion is complaining that it is a customized system, when in fact it is straight from the books (Which REQUIRE the DnD 3.5 Rules)...

No worries though...

This doesn't strike you as an insane, perhaps deliberately obtuse statement: "unchanged from the rules in the Book, other than the Changes imposed by Black Company"? He says you're playing weird rules… you say you're playing weird rules.

Again, You do not HAVE to do that. Run the world the way it is, and let the pieces fall where they may. Just because a Thief is 20th Level does not mean that every lock is now at an epic DC 45 or higher... In fact, if the world is realistically represented, the Thief trivially picks locks and what not at that point... he should be branching out to skills not in his main schtick. There is rarely any reason to match the world to the PC's... It is almost always the other way around. If you Choose to scale the world, then that is where you run into your implausabilities.

Different Styles though, so no worries.

Nope, I say that I am using a campaign book that requires the use of the DnD Base Rules. Just like The Forogtten Realms Campaign setting, the Black Company Setting imposes changes to the Basic Setting Rules. If you are using Forgotten Realms Setting, and I am using the Black Company Setting, Then we are both using the rules for DnD... Thus we are both playing DnD. You really cannot argue that point, becuase that argument cannot be won. They are both DnD, because they both use the basic rules from said rulebooks.

Nah. If a third-party setting significantly changes the mechanics, *you* really cannot argue that you're playing the normal rules. The fact that you're choosing to (completely off-topic) is interesting.

Closer to the thread, I can't imagine why you think you can 'let the pieces fall' with D&D. PCs level up; challenges become literally ignorable, trivial. If you 'run the world the way it is', then the PCs will destroy it, and the game will suck. You can't not scale. The game is based on scaling, and has been for decades. He is certainly right that you can't increase your skills or anything without leveling, which necessarily increases all aspects of your power (basic 'level-based vs. karma-based'). I guess you can avoid XP and increase power just by getting richer, but that's both implausible and unhelpful to the problem anyway.

I still don't think this question has any bearing on the actual topic, though. It's a nice bonus that the level-less SR4 rules just happen to avoid the problem, so we don't need to worry about it.

But old challenges becoming trivial can be a good thing!

If a thief is good enough to trivially bypass locks, well, that frees him up to learn something different. If the world automagically scales up in difficulty, you can never really diversify, because you'd be losing ground in your original skillset.

When characters become more powerful, they can engage in different kinds of adventures; they might start to play on the level of the Kingdom Vs. Monsters strategy for example.

I agree. Both options can be fun, and I do understand the 'Oblivion problem' or whatever. The question is which option do the players want? Some people could want to simply become higher level while staying in their roles as 'rogue', 'monk', whatever, while other people enjoy the ability to continuously diversify (call it the 'Leverage' method).

Another thing: is it really bad if at some point the PCs become so powerful that the world needs to fear them? "They'd tear the world down" - LET THEM! It's a fantasy world for the sole purpose of GM+Player fun. If tearing it down is fun, do it. You don't have to be thrifty, it's okay if it "breaks". It isn't actually real. You can just start over with a new unbroken world for the next campaign.

I think one of the cooler parts in a campaign is the point where as a PC you become one of the movers & shakers. Where you can do stuff that will totally change things on a large scale. "Graduating" to that power level is great fun.

So what I'm trying to say is: escalation of PC power in the long run is good! After all, with great power comes great responsibility...

Exactly: if that's what the players want, you can do it.

I think what he's saying is that it doesn't count as modified rules because it's in a book that he bought. Even though that book contains modified rules written by some third party publisher.



Of course. I like D&D, and the system works great if that's where you want to go with your game. My comments were all regarding situations where you don't want to run that sort of game. Where you want to run something that's D&D-esque, but restricted to a cinematic/gritty style as opposed to an epic/heroic style (or a World of Warcraft/crappy style, if you want to consider D&D 4). This whole sidetrack was in response to the question "why would you want to modify SR rules when you can just play D&D?" The answer is: to accommodate a game style that's not really possible with the basic D&D rules.

Dudes, get over it.

I can't comment on 'black mercenaries' (never even heard of it - and I wouldn't consider it 'vanilla D&D' if it has rules which contradict the main manual), but in my experience, what Epicudion describes is the issue. The challenges the characters overcame at level 1 are relatively trivial now. Usually they have to go elsewhere to be challenged, sometimes even another continent. It doesn't make for a very believable world though when you're regularly fighting enemies who have the capability to fly back where you came from, dominate it, and collect millions of gold/infants/whatever (or who use spells which could crack the world in half if they go awry). But vanilla D&D (and most of the supplements) aren't trying to be realistic, they're trying to be exciting.

This setup really does seem to be the 'standard' with D&D. Look at Baldur's Gate. The guards you encounter in the last cities are significantly stronger than those you encounter in the first cities. No real explanation. They just are. And that's pretty universal. The random animals wandering in the roads, the random characters you encounter, the random guards you might fight, all just 'happen' to be tougher than they were before. This is another form of power creep - that you're egged on to the next location/mission/book to gain more power. This is contrasted with SR, which suffers from feature creep. You don't get significantly stronger, but you can do more cool stuff.

Now yes, a smart GM like T J can work around this, and you can make a beautiful politics game and there are plenty of both canon and custom rules to 'fix' this. However, I wouldn't consider those 'vanilla'. Vanilla is the rules in the main books. Unless the OP's group plays like this, we really can't be talking about those fringe cases. T J also brings up the interesting point that it's probably easier to rework D&D to fit SR (either in game play or setting) than vice versa. D20 is very versatile.

But before OP does any of that, he has to go back and ask 'what sort of game do my players want to play? Do they WANT to play a game where, after a year of in game play they still feel threatened by level 1 characters?' If not, the SR mechanics are not what he wants.

See, once again you and I have different opinions and Experiences. Imagine that, right?

As I said previously. I do not scale the CR Encounters to my PC's. In my opinion, that, more than anything, will ruin the verasimilitude of the game world. Irrevocably, in most cases, as you struggle to provide more and more challenging encounters to your characters, which become more and more improbable. Different Play Styles as I indicated above. At a certain point, the PC's deserve to have trivial things. In my experience, once this occurs, the PC's branch out towards other things. It is the nature of the challenge. If one thing is no longer a challenge, my PC's tend to look for something that will challenge them.

In this regard, the typical Dungeon Crawl beceomes so boring as to generate no interest what so ever. In all the 23 Years of me running my DnD campaign, I have run a sum-total of 5 dungeons. Total. The PC's, in their desire for a more fulfilling experience (other than the interminable dungeon exposition), chose to delve into the intricacies of Politics, which does not care WHAT level you are. When you , as a character, are responsible for the well-being of those under you, well, your perspective changes radically. And Yes, I do give out XP in my games. My Last BIG group (10 Players or so) while using AD&D (Skills and Powers edition if I remember correctly) were so experienced that I had multiple characters with Multiple Classes in the mid teens each. So, XP was never an issue. As I said above, Politics knows no level limits, and generally imposes more upon the characters than any dungeon would (or could) ever do.

No worries though.

It's true that, in order to avoid the inevitable problem of overleveled characters, you've dragged D&D to a very nonstandard place. If you're playing politics, that's abnormal. It's not wrong, or unfun, or any of that, so relax… but it's inarguably abnormal. Ditto your experience with dungeons, etc. You took a crunch game and made it free-form RP. That's fine, but it's not relevant to a crunch discussion, I think.

We're so far from the orginal post, that the post is a dot to you guys!

I will admit that the course of play used at my table is not the standard Dungeon Crawl/Monster of the Week Campaign Design, but that does not mean that it is not DnD. Which was actually part of the original topic. You can use any system to provide a basis for a good campaign, regardless of the Genre. I do agree, though, that there are some systems that work better for some Genre's than others. Using the Shadowrun System to provide a basis for a DnD'esque Game works out pretty well, in my opinion, as long as players realize that it will be much more gritty than the same game that is using DnD. Systems have their uses, and DnD is useful for the typical High Fantasy Campaign, where there is little to no concern for consequence and "realism" within that High Fantasy Genre.

However, Just because a System is set up in that manner (DnD) does not mean that it cannot be used for more serious play that provides more realistic Consequences. By the same Token, Shadowrun has a much better design for sheer Roleplay vs. Dungeoneering, as its systems for social interaction put DnD's to shame, especially with the New Edition of DnD. Ultimately, groups should pick what they feel is the best fit for their table.

Anyways, Peace be with You...

I personally have had trouble with it. SR mechanics are built around people either having game-changing magic, or game-changing cyberware. D&D (classic dungeon-crawling) is built around game-changing magic or game-changing... training and random magical loot? Shadowrun enforces a degree of equality across character types (being classless), so there's nothing preventing your mage from also being awesome with a sword. Remove cyberware and that paradigm begins to fall apart, resulting in world-changing mages and... support staff with lots of skills and no combat use.

There are a few ways around this. You can force everyone to be magically active (either adept or mage). You can introduce fantasy equivalents to cyberware, like Earthdawn's implants which fed on your personal pattern. You can also basically pigeonhole Shadowrun into a class system, by artificially creating skill restrictions, giving 'free' upgrades to initiative and such as they advance and so on (but don't do that... ugh).

Again, I would say it's easier to stuff a simplistic system into a complex setting (turn d20 into something more cyberpunk) than to shear a complex system into a strange niche.

There are some other possibilities. You can wholesale shift over to SR, but run missions that are more similar to the sorts of missions the party is used to (dragon hunts, dungeon crawls, politics, whatever). You could also use an interim system. Eclipse Phase works nicely. It's a d100 system, but it works well both in an SR setting with modern weapons, and a fantasy setting. The downside is, magic is pretty limited compared to either D&D or SR.

But I feel like this comes down to 'what do the players want'? I appreciate the GM is trying to drag them out of the stone age, of play a game HE actually wants to play, but if he's operating without any knowledge of what will give them a fun time, it's already a non-starter.

I Love me some Eclipse Phase... Just wish I could find a game to play in. I really do not want to run it myself.

As for the rest... I can agree with that. It takes effort to make a good High Fantasy game using Shadowrun, but when you take that effort, it is a great time.

To me, all a living world in DnD requires is a little DM foresight and players using common sense (granted, I know both of those can be questionable). For example, in my latest 4e campaign, the city the players started in, had 10th level guards. At 1st level, the PCs would get destroyed. Obviously, it was wise of them not to pick a fight with them. A few levels later, they did have a run-in and while they could actually hit them, they were still wholly outclassed statistically and found themselves in the local dungeon. When they come back to town at epic levels, the 10th level guards are a joke. They won't be able to hit the party, but will still fight and provide some use (basically, a blocked square for movement) and maybe require more than one hit to kill (which gives it some added value above a minion).

So, if the DM plans a little ahead, a living world can be setup. I know most of the time I run a living world and I also let the players know that they should beware of certain areas because if they come up against something that will smack them silly, then they are going to get smacked silly. Although, from an RP standpoint, that usually means subdued and captured vs. outright death (unless they are being asshats).

In SR, everything from a minion to a dragon provides threat and, under different circumstances, could be a legitimate encounter. Although, I feel that in SR its the players, not the GM, that has to do the planning to balance things out.

Which brings me to a new conclusion (at least to me). DnD requires the DM to balance the game, putting in appropriate obstacles based on the level of the characters whereas SR requires the players to balance the game through legwork, planning and execution.

There's a part like that in Dragon Mountain. I didn't run either fight for the party, one of them gets interrupted by an NPC vouching for the party, but I let the players know that the Lawful Stupid paladin* and his crew should be able to punk the players.

*The duke he worked for had been corrupted by evil and the paladin didn't notice.

I just don't understand the point of this so-called 'living world', I guess. The game is for the players. If there's a dragon that'll kill them, then they can't fight it. I don't think anyone is saying make it a weaker dragon.

Well... The characters probably SHOULDN"T fight it. But I have seen (and I am sure that you have as well) Players make an assumption that anything they encounter is for the purposes of XP and a fight ensues, regardless of why that encounter may be there. At that point, in a living world, the player's characters are not. Consequences and all that...

Of course, some players don't want a living world, and that's fine. Shadowrun is really built to support a living world though so, if you are trying to transition players from one to the other, the living world is a real issue that deserves examination.

The dragon question just presents one example of this. What sort of nation has level 10 guards common as dirt in the main city, but a suburb town is plagued by a constant number of level .3 kobolds who steal and eat their babies. Meanwhile, on the other side of the capital is a colony of level 26 firedemons who are content to sit in their little dungeon and, I don't know, also eat babies. Any rational player will say 'wtf'. Yes, this issue can be solved, but it has been incorporated into the system from the ground up (or down). Look at the original dungeons, which are, by biomass, 90% super-predator, 8% herbivores, and 2% plant matter (with no source of light or plant food). SR really doesn't put up with that sort of silliness, and if you're transitioning, you WILL need to deal with that issue, if you haven't already.

(The more poignant example is that most groups will, eventually, find themselves at a level when they have more power and money than entire nations - nations who inexplicably have survived firedemons and red dragons as neighbors. In my experience the only reason the PCs don't start cutting a swath through civilization is that it would get tedious.)

I wouldn't say that SR "doesn't put up with that sort of silliness". It's up to the GM, as always. You can go hunt ghouls in 'unrealistic' numbers if you want. I do understand your point: in the SR setting, there aren't the very video-game-like 'easy areas' and 'hard areas'. There definitely are, however, gang slums and high-sec corp facilities, right? There are Humanis thugs and there are Red Sams, Tir Ghosts, etc. The challenges still fit the players, unless someone has screwed up. Also, you can explain D&D dungeon illogic by saying 'a wizard did it'. You can't explain the firedemons, though, unless they're just inscrutable.

But here's the thing... the challenges for novice players aren't significantly different than the challenges for experienced players. First Run (which, presumably, is someone's first run) puts the party against a cyberzombie. On the other hand, I've seen entire campaigns based around shooting gangers in the face. The power curve is far more level, so you never have to explain why the super-tough guy lives next door to the super-easy guy - in SR, the super-easy guy is still a genuine challenge for the super-tough guy, so they counter each other.

I do agree. SR4 provides a significantly flatter curve, which I think is due to the near-future setting and the no-class/no-level system. I'm just saying that it's not *flat*. Flatter. I wouldn't even want flat. I want a low-security location and a high-security location to be easier and harder, so that you can tailor the challenges to the number/power of PCs. I just wouldn't say that you "never" have to explain, because the super-tough *is* much stronger than the super-easy.

It's flat because of the two-shot kill aspect of combat. When most weapons are doing at least 4 hp and you only have 10 hp it doesn't take many shots to kill someone.

NEARLY flat isn't the same as flat. With Karma and money a character can get more body and add more 'ware - leading to more 'HP', not to mention more reaction/dodge to avoid damage. Mind you, it's usually the difference with getting shot 3 times vs. 4 times, but it's still character progression.

And there are other factors, of course. The 'higher' character will probably attack first, probably be able to go undetected, probably have more friends, etc. I'm *not* saying SR threats don't remain threats in the 'late game', just that there obviously *is* power growth.

I think things are shorted a tad in the firedemon example. The missing piece is the reason for those level 26 firedemons. Some groups will never second-guess a thing, as they are playing a game, having fun and all that. For those that think the firedemons should invade the village with the 3rd level mayor as its highest level, well, that again, is where the DM comes in and can give a reason. Maybe the firedemons are preforming rituals for a master and none of them want to be bothered by a neighboring threat? Maybe they are busy mining for some artifact?

Who knows, but if "reality" has to be played out in a DnD living world, then there are explanations that can allow for the village to survive next to the firedemons. I'd say that most players don't really care as much about explanations. I mean, the same could be said for world-class veteran runner living in a crappy apartment to stay low-key. He could likely kill every single person in the building and maybe even the entire block, but there is likely a reason he doesn't want to do that and attract the attention.

Having played SR, I'm pretty sure he's there because he didn't want to 'waste' BP on Lifestyle.

Heh... How Rude...

The apologetics are indeed common, but I don't think it adds much to say 'oh yeah, there is a plane FULL of creatures which could kill the toughest human, and they love to dance in our flesh, and right now they're staying in their dungeon because umm... they're doing a ritual. For a worse monster.' It's doing contortions to have polar bears live next to elephants, and it all depends to either a HUGELY creative GM, or willing suspension of disbelief.

Why does a runner live in a crappy apartment instead of killing everyone in the entire building and claiming it all for himself? Is there any real question there? It's for the same reason YOU don't drive up to the biggest mansion on the block, kill everyone inside, and move your stuff in - because the local gang (normally the police) get paid off by those guys and now they're going to kill you. If you're tough enough to kill off the apartment AND the local gang, then there's no reason for you not to do so (except maybe personal taste), and some runners do. But most runners never get to the point where killing 40 guys with ARs is a sure thing, while most D&D characters do.

Well, there could be a question. I mean, if the reason is the same, meaning, because the GM put them there (talking about either the firedemons or the veteran runner). It seems there is a double standard and I think its partially due to players being closer to 2070 than 1225. I think we are giving a lot more credit to GMs in SR than DnD, as its certainly possible there is no other reason for something to happen in SR than "because the GM wanted it there for an adventure".

I point back to where the burden of believability comes from in both games. In SR, I have found that players need much less description of stuff, because they are just so much familiar with a future 2070 world. I don't need to explain every street corner, building or car, because they already know it. So, if they run into a veteran runner in an abandoned building, they can draw their own conclusions and don't really question that much (even though as a GM, I may have just added him there "just because"). Similarly for a dungeon crawl that I stock with monsters. If the players need some believability, then I can give them that or they can kind of think of it themselves, but just the same as SR, most really don't question it.

Who's to say there isn't a local gang keeping those firedemons from spreading? Or that they are being stored/hidden there by some powerful entity on the other side of the planet or a different world? I don't think that takes any more creativity than dropping a runner in an abandoned building that the players "just happen" to run across...

No argument on the difference in power levels, as there is a huge gap between level 1 and level 30 in DnD4 and a lot smaller difference between a starting SR character and one with 300+ karma.

D&D hate, on Dumpshock ?!

I don't mean to be pushy, but IMO, the number one reason far away is the level gap issue. In D&D, the maximum a 'normal' character should reach (i.e., someone you might meet on the street) is 10-14 range, with the average person being in the 1-3 range. I don't have my DM's manual on hand, but I seem to recall from the CR ratings that that APPROXIMATELY 20 level 1 characters would provide a 'challenge' for a group of 4 level 10 characters (more depending on equipment). If you happen to have a town with 100 city guards (lvl 10-14) and your neighboring peasants who grow food for your town say "please help, kobolds are attacking (lvl .25), it is trivial to take a group of 8 guards, less than 10% of your force, and clear out an entire city of kobolds, with 0 expected losses. And thanks to magic, you just have to decide if the travel time for those guards is worth more than 1,000 gp (in which case, teleport instantaneously) or not (in which case, walk).

Of course, most of the critters in D&D aren't level .25 - they're level 10-14. Which means your little town of people too weak to defeat a bunch of kobolds is basically a giant sandwich stand to the next level 12 alpha predator that comes wandering through there (as are the PCs!) So either the town is under the protection of a city which will defend them against level 12 alpha predators but not against level .25 kobolds, or they're in the wild and have the life expectency of a burrito at a gaming convention.

But then we look at the flip side. PCs can scale that ladder basically indefinitely. There are books with rules for what level characters need to be at to swim up waterfalls and even the main books have plenty of critters at the 18-20 level (including a significant number from the 'plane of infinite level 16-18 critters'). And of course, these too live in the same world as the previous stuff, more often than not (and if they don't, who cares, when you have creatures with teleport?) So now the town with 100 level 10-14 guards lives next door to the gateway to the plane of infinite level 16 fireferrets or whatever, and the PCs wield spells that literally mess around with time and space.

Given all this, you would EXPECT the world to suddenly erupt in level infinity monsters/characters who battle it out and devour everything smaller than themselves, then all starve to death because no one took levels in 'turnip farming'.

(The same argument can be made for the classic D&D dungeon, of which there are many in canon, which is 80% by biomass super-predator, 18% omnivores, 2% plant life, and 0% outside source of energy.)

Not saying it's a bad or not fun game. It's just completely nonsensical. It's fantasy.

Compare this to SR. Your Top Runner will still die going toe-to-toe with ten gangers. Your average runner won't want to face 4. Lone Star is vulnerable to 'random Ares employee #46'. Indeed, there is still a power curve, but it's not a power cliff face like D&D. And this reflects real life. Even in 1225, there was no guy who could comfortably get hit with a broadsword 10 times and not even slow down (and if there was, he would be king). D&D isn't 1225. It's anything-goes fantasy for people who just want to crack some skulls without too much thought.

And that's where the problem comes up. D&D caters to minimalistic planning and strategy, maximum 'awesomeness'. SR caters to maximum planning and strategy, with the 'awesomeness' on its own meter you can crank at your discretion. If your players don't like things like 'using cover' or 'not getting shot in the face', they probably won't like SR very much.

I just picked 1225 out of my arse as representative of a typical medieval setting. But you are right, DnD is fantasy, pure and simple. The players are, normally, heroes who end up capable of super-heroic things. Stats, abilities and gear all increase as level increases...and therefore, to make things a challenge, for the players, so do monster damage and defenses. Everything gets bigger and badder to give the players a challenge. DnD is centered around the players and geared for the player to walk in, hack and slash, and walk out stronger.

From my reading about 4e, the math shows that a 5-man party fighting a normal challenge at 5th level is approximately the same effort/difficulty as a 5-man party fighting a normal challenge at 25th level. Its all balanced, for the most part (there are some jumps when moving from heroic, paragon and epic tiers), and its easy to setup up a challenging combat encounter in a matter of 30 seconds, knowing the # of players and level. Cookie cutter, so to speak.

Now, I would argue that being hit 10 times with a broadsword is a detailed enough example. If I have 100 HP and those 10 hits equate to 50HP, that's one thing. Another 10 hits could end up being 12HP. I'm pretty sure many armored soldiers in medieval times were getting hit an awful lot, its just none of them got through the armor.

In SR4, I've seen a troll shot himself in the head and soak up all but 4 damage...I'd say that is pretty fantastic!

And the double standard I was speaking toward was about how a DM must be hugely creative or have a suspension of belief to make the game work, whereas a GM for SR automatically has the game work and believable. And I still think a lot of that is just due to playing in a modern setting. Things are more believable when they are closer to modern times.

And as someone mentioned, SR4 is just a lot flatter, from a power level perspective. In DnD, you could probably get the same end effect as SR4, if you limited the max level to maybe 6 or 7.

You are right because sadly William Marshal had just died. Now if you said in 1205...it would be different http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marsh...arl_of_Pembroke