TNE: To Tier or Not, and Mass Combat and Setting

[K]

Ok, Frank and I have been talking about Tiers. Considering that this is a 4e idea we probably should not do it, but here are the options as I see them:

Option 1: A Tiered World
In this world, there are several tiers to your world. For the sake of argument, we'll use Heroic, Epic, and Mythic.

In heroic you have weak mages who cast a Mist spell and not Invisible and strong fighters. Magic like Teleport is a plot device and never falls into PC hands. Life is about killing hydras in caves.

In epic, fighters get anime powers and Wizards get equivalent powers, and Raising is ho-hum and people live in castles or thieves dens or towers on lonely cliffs. Life is about killing dragons at the end of mazes.

In mythic, both classes get Dragonball Z powers and the cockpunch giants before tossing them into mountains. Life is about single-handedly killing armies of lizard men who attack your Crystal City.

In all three tiers, we assume that you can't go between the tiers except as a plot device. So if a heroic party wants to kill a dragon then the adventure is actually about getting a Dragonslayer magic sword guarded by a troll king and the dragonkilling part is just a cutscene the DM describes at the end.

Pros:
-Everyone gets what they want somewhere. People who want Beowulf play mythic and people who want fights with bears in the forest to be high drama get heroic tier and people who want LotR play epic.

-People get power. Epic tier guys just pee on heroic tier guys because... hey, what are they going to do? This means when you enter the army smashing phase of your life you just smash armies and if the orphan boy wants to get revenge on you he better get into your tier before he can even make you consider him a threat.

Cons
-Lots of design. Basically three games with limited IP between them, so three times the playtesting and debugging and three times the chance of failures in balance.

-People get no respect between the tiers. Epic tier guys just pee on heroic tier guys because... hey, what are they going to do? Messes up the play dynamic basically because PCs are more powerful than setting elements and they just kill the king when he asks them to not track mud into his throneroom. It limits lots of stories, so I don't know what's up.

-I don't even know if Mythic can be written for. I'm a seriously creative guy and it takes a long time to write challenging adventures and threats for people in this tier that aren't made of arbitrarium and bullshit.

-Need for sideways development. After you have gotten all the levels in your tier, you need to start playing some other game where you get some other thing for playing. Take your tiers and double the number of games you need to design.

Option 2: The One Balance Point(Mid) and Multiple Setting RPG
In this option, we don't tier in any meaningful way and magic is just a technology. Dwarven fighters make magic items and don't cast spells and wizards cast spells and don't make magic items.

Also, we give people nonmagical abilities that equate to magical ones and reign in magic to a point where is becomes less fairy tale and more mechanical and crunchy. An example: powerful wizards can teleport if they go to a city and spend cash buying the materials and setting it up and the fighter has a social ability that guarantees that in the same amount of time he can find a wizard and bribe or intimidate him into doing the teleport.

Levels come into play, but things never get super crazy. There is no level 20 teleport that is instant because you decided that teleport comes in at level 9 and it takes a few hours to work up.

Mass combat becomes an option because you never get fairy tale army crushing powers, but you can become a vital component to an "army builder" power and send your armies vs enemy armies.

Setting then becomes an issue about how awesome you want your characters to be in comparison to your world. In a low magic setting, your character's ability to teleport or build a teleport helm or sniff out the few wizards and bend them to your will and make them teleport you is big noise and the king hands you his daughter and you don't even have to marry her. In high magic settings, it's less of a big deal since people take the airships all the time and really isn't that more convenient and who really needs to get to the Pit of Burning Sands that quickly?

Pros:
-Easy to design and write adventures for. If you can write an ability and say "ok, how many stories is this going to bone" and just depower or cut until it doesn't do that, you make adventure-writing so much easier.

-Long play. You can play a long time and keep people happy if there is a smooth progression from landless adventurer to king of a moderately sized kingdom.

-Since you have a smooth power progression, you are always some kind of threat even if as an orphan boy you can only give the villain a nasty facial scar before he beats the hell out of you.

Cons:
-Lots of people won't get the power (or lack of power) they want. They'll want to be Beowulf and moan about how they can't just hold their breath for three days and other people will ask why they can't get instant teleport, and then people will say that they don't think it's cool that their fighter can just make an enchanted sword and want to cavity search goblins for ass-pennies for years before they get their first magic sword.

-You can't ignore the setting or NPCs. Local constables can actually detain you because fighting your way out might get someone injured before the big orc raid that is happening later that day.

-A number of stories are impossible. Take any Dragonball Z plot and set it on fire.



Comments?

[MGuy]

I am all for the second one. Except that I think that utility abilities like Plane Shift and Teleport should be made into Rituals (which can only be gotten at a certain level and cost so many supplies to use) so that every one can get and use them if they take the time and effort. That way the fighter doesn't have to muscle his way into getting a teleport.

There are a number of things I liked about 4th ed Tiers were not one of them.

[Spaghetti Western]

I think I may like option 1. If I'm understanding it correctly there does not have to limit on how far one could progress in the first tier. Specifically I think I would be quite content to limit myself to tier one indefinitely.

Conceptually I think people may have a problem accepting it though as you are basically creating 3 dimensions which do not interact with one another but through which characters travel (one way).


I also really like option 2.

[virgil]

Personally, I think the creative juice required to do a mythic tier game justice isn't worth it. That power level just isn't respected in the gaming community at large, as too many look down upon it as childish and borderline masturbatory; and while there are those not like that, such a game will be about as successful as Toon if you're lucky.

As for the con of ignoring setting/NPCs in Option 2, it's more of a mixed con. Players who would ignore an NPC are commonly the more disruptive type, so having some means of 'control' without seeming too adversarial as a DM is a good thing. However, this also empowers the DMs who like to slap players with their penis; although the very bad railroading ones will do it no matter the rules.

All in all, Option 2 looks right to me.

[Username17]

Honestly I don't see how to do Black Forest and Cloud Islands in the same game system without tiers. Seriously, I don't.

And with tiering it seems pretty easy. You have a tier for child heroes and a tier for sky pirates and then it's shit simple to include griffon mastery in the sky pirate tier and the child heroes work fine.

Basically within each tier you don't even need levels, you just need ability sets and classes.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

I don't really know if I like the concept of a Tiered World, but I do like the idea of a tiered game. Really I don't think it's going to work very well where for whatever reason, super villains go to Metropolis and all the weaker guys go to Gotham. That tends to stretch believability quite a bit, at least for me. Now you may be able to design such a setting.

That being said, the concept of a tiered game isn't bad. In reality it may well play like 3 separate games, but you can still have relatively unified mechanics, just the powers operate on three separate tiers, and don't interact with each other at all. So you may choose to play a heroic tier adventure which is on par with LotR. Or you may choose to run epic for forgotten realms or dark sun.

I'm with you about the whole mythic tier being difficult to write for. Mythic level characters in stories are generally so driven by author fiat and inconsistency that writing rules for them is extremely difficult. Really, I'm not sure it's even worth it to try. The fact is that mythic characters tend to be one man armies anyway, and not particularly conducive to group play. Superman seriously doesn't need a team to fuck people up, nor does Beowulf. Mythic guys really don't team up at all in stories, and that makes it hard.

[Orca]

Tiers are a decision that you can't satisfy everyone with one game, so you're going to write multiple games and hope that everyone likes at least one. And then, somehow, you're going to have them interact.

I think that's a mistake. There will still be people who don't like the balance points in any of the games, and the interaction means that some more will be pissed off when the mighty wizards all piss on their fighters.

Pick one solution and make it sing.

[virgil]

I had considered mentioning Black Forest, because that tier system is one I can get behind, and it having only two tiers really cuts down on the mental space required to design/play. One of the things it doesn't have is the Mythic tier, which was the driving reason for me not choosing Option 1.

[Username17]

Basically what you get is a set of tiers with a more story-base or skill-base feel within each. Tiers aren't necessarily or advantageously stacked end on end. That is, getting to the top of Child Hero does not make you wrap into the first step of Young Adult Champion. Nor should they.

Basically what the tiers represent is groupings of abilities that tell good stories with each other. You can have a world in which a single archmage stands as a major but not necessarily deciding force on the battlefield. And he can exist in a world where people still train goblins to be elite spearmen. But he is not going to adventure alongside an elite goblin spearman except possibly in some sort of comic relief role.

And you could have a world in which the top level archmages really did just wave their hands and turn armies into ash. And that would be a very different world. Indeed, what tiers are available in the campaign world need not be especially similar one to another.

---

The key concepts I think need to be gotten across are:

• Tiers are not analogous to levels nor even to collections of levels. Tiers are brackets wherein it is reasonable to expect people to be able to adventure together.
• Tiers can fight each other, and indeed it should be expected that they should. People in the heroic tier should expect to face off against a beast from the monstrous tier. The monstrous tier is a different tier because it's totally unfair for one person to play a beast that can plausibly take on the entire rest of the party.
• Different campaign settings will have different tiers available to them. Some of this is a power consideration. Child Heroes are a waste of time in The Stormscape and Immortal Champions are completely unconcerned by the feudal bullshit of the Black Forest. But mostly this is all about theme. The Stormscape hands out flight like it was candy, because everything takes place in a 3d wonderland. The Black Forest is all myopic and airshipless, so even at its Champion Tier it isn't handing out much in the way of airship captaincy, so despite the fact that those characters are no less "powerful" than Stormscape sky pirates, they select their abilities off a different list.

Tiers exist to ration plot destabilizing power, to prevent people from spending their character abilities on things that don't matter in the story, and to be able to keep players in the same team as one another.

-Username17

[Spaghetti Western]

"
The key concepts I think need to be gotten across are:

* Tiers are not analogous to levels nor even to collections of levels. Tiers are brackets wherein it is reasonable to expect people to be able to adventure together"

I didn't think about this way but it now makes the tier option favorite in a big way. I love the idea of first being able to easily decide what "theme" of game I (and friends) want to play and then being able to plausibly do so within the confines of the rules and most importantly being able to play it out until a desired conclusion whether thats one adventure or an entire campaign.

I especially love the idea of a group of players collectively agreeing on the framework for them to play in. I think you'll have a higher degree of overall satisfaction across the entire campaign.

[Korwin]

The Spaghetti Western

The key concepts I think need to be gotten across are:

* Tiers are not analogous to levels nor even to collections of levels. Tiers are brackets wherein it is reasonable to expect people to be able to adventure together"

I didn't think about this way but it now makes the tier option favorite in a big way. I love the idea of first being able to easily decide what "theme" of game I (and friends) want to play and then being able to plausibly do so within the confines of the rules and most importantly being able to play it out until a desired conclusion whether thats one adventure or an entire campaign.

I especially love the idea of a group of players collectively agreeing on the framework for them to play in. I think you'll have a higher degree of overall satisfaction across the entire campaign.

+1

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

I like worldspanning powers. I like powers that affect the world. I like powers that mean something. I don't like plot device spells, I want them written up as actual spells. I don't like Artifacts of Doom. I want mechanics to represent how to make it and other items.

One reason I play D&D is because I like to use powers that I see in movies and read in fiction intelligently. If all a game has is 4e powers, that's one less reason I have to use that game.

[arangatang]

I think, to a group of adventurers, Plot Device Spells and Artifacts of Doom would merely be typical spells and items from the next tier up. A heroic tier party won't be able to buy, create, or even fully unlock the abilities of the epic tier items until they reach epic tier. They must go on some sort of spicy quest to find one, followed by them using it on some epic level threat in order to lower the challenge of the threat to a heroic level.

K's initial Dragonslaying Sword example feels right on the mark. Once you reach epic tier you'll probably have a Santa sack of epic junk, and once again quest for mythic items in order to challenge mythic dudes.

[Parthenon]

Thanks Ramnza.

---

So, Tiers are more like Venn diagrams, with the whole world being subdivided into various story types. Interesting, but it sounds unwieldy.

I prefer the idea of the single balance point RPG. With a strict editing and clinging tightly to the design points and balance points it sounds cool.

My problem with 4e rituals and plot device spells is that they are completely arbitrary. While they have infinite potential, if you want to do something new with a ritual you have to convince the DM that the new ritual is okay, which is likely to have the same chance as convincing a DM that this class you wrote up is balanced.

[Username17]

So, Tiers are more like Venn diagrams, with the whole world being subdivided into various story types. Interesting, but it sounds unwieldy.

Well it can be used for character advancement, and in doing so should be rather more successful than leveling has been. Let's have an example of the Black Forest children growing up:

Time passes, they get a screen wipe and a new plot direction. They are also in a new tier. That's important, because a bunch of the abilities that they have (like "innocent expression") simply do not exist for characters running around being adult adventurers. All of those get traded out. This means that when a character tier hops with a character that has abilities that can scale up to a higher tier (like a conjurer who goes from pulling rabbits out of a hat to a conjurer who summons actual monsters) those abilities scale. And when a character tier hops with abilities that don't scale (like our seamstress hero signing on as a dragon slayer) they get full Narnia style character trade out.

Remember the D&D cartoon? Some kids just need an orthogonal upgrade when they are asked to start fighting red dragons. And so they get one.

---

But the other thing this does, is it lets the world support stuff like Iron Kingdoms. That world supports there being swordsmen, and the world supports there being warcasters, but the world in no way supports warcasters being in any way coequal with swordsmen. You can tell a story about an apprentice mage who becomes a warrior mage who becomes a warcaster. And you can tell a story of a militia member who becomes a soldier who becomes an elite veteran. But those aren't compatible stories. Because the warcaster isn't playing the same game as the elite veteran even though the magician's apprentice is playing the same game as the village militia member.

If you decide that you want to hop tiers to the warcaster level, the soldier in the party is going to have to advance to something that matters at that tier. Maybe he discovers the spark and becomes a warcaster himself. Maybe he dies and becomes an Iron Lich. Maybe he soul binds to a dragon. Maybe he makes a pact with the others and becomes a demonologist. Maybe he feeds a bunch of elvish hearts to the hungry forest and becomes a leader of the Circle. Whatever. The point is that most of his soldier abilities don't matter at this tier and he is going to trade them out for being something that does.

-Username17

[MGuy]

I'd prefer the single world leveling system. Tiers (the way you put it) sound great for story telling and if used in the way you've outlined certainly seem entertaining. I do think that a leveling system is fine though as I don't want to have to deal with what is basically different worlds, and different rules in every game. Even the way Frank has put it, it still sounds like I'd be messing around with the notion of making different worlds tied together by similar but alternatively balanced mechanics. While in staying with the leveling system I end up with just having to worry about making a single balanced system. It may make running the stories from childhood more difficult (which I had never really thought of doing before but it sounds really interesting @.@ )but this way the story can progress naturally without me having to make a board wipe over the characters and cut to a new scene while still allowing me to do so if it fits with the action.

[mean_liar]

I would think you'd be able to do it with levels. The trick would be setting up the classes, since I think it sounds like no class should contribute more than, say, 5 levels to a 15 level progression, with martial classes contributing, say, 3.

[Username17]

I would think you'd be able to do it with levels. The trick would be setting up the classes, since I think it sounds like no class should contribute more than, say, 5 levels to a 15 level progression, with martial classes contributing, say, 3.

At this point, I genuinely don't think that's desirable.

Levels have the unfortunate side effect of constantly pushing on the Random Number generator. In a tier progression system, the numbers might not change or even go down when you went from one tier to another (for example: getting to "old man" tier). However, abilities that people have can retain relevance.

Simply put, the fact that some guy can rain fire down upon several square kilometers and essentially invalidate whole armies full of soldiers does not inherently mean that they should be immune to a blade in the back. Indeed, in most power progression schedules the conceit is that such characters retain a weakness to sharp steel throughout their entire lives - even when they are walking on clouds or fighting demons and dragons. And yet, by numerically pushing a character through point after point of being tougher than until armies full of spearmen become laughable, the RNG becomes so pushed that you end up with 4e nonsense where getting coup de graced with a dagger in your sleep causes you to wake up and lose half a healing surge.

Non-linear tiers allow you to group characters in ways that actually make sense, without forcing people to become personal combat badasses to achieve meaningful character abilities. Just think: master craftsmen who can make excellent furniture without being able to take repeated stone giant hammer blows to the face. Seriously: people can get some pretty sweet professional abilities in that civilian tier without ever getting to BAB +5 or any of that nonsense.

-Username17

[Thymos]

It sounds like this game is better off ditching the levels as we know them in DnD entirely.

Do we want to include levels as things that Increase BAB, HP, and saves; and make it so the class abilities depend on tier?

That way characters can gain bonuses and become slightly stronger, but their abilities will stay to the tier that they are playing in.

Indeed, in most power progression schedules the conceit is that such characters retain a weakness to sharp steel throughout their entire lives - even when they are walking on clouds or fighting demons and dragons.

I think it really depends on the sharp steel in question. They should be immune to mook #2's sharp steel, but not fighter of equal tier's sharp steel.

[MGuy]

Indeed if we're talking about a tier system then levels shouldn't be a part of it (I think that's part of the point between having a tier system or not). Still it seems though that if you can battle a giant at high tier even a knife in the back would serve only to piss you off. In that aspect I don't think the Tier would be significantly different from a leveling system.

[violence in the media]

I like Frank's idea of the civilian tier and the adventurer tier, as minimum separations. A 20th level Expert isn't a 20th, or even 15th, level challenge in regular 3.x

[ckafrica]

I'm totally in support of the tier idea. I think it greatly simplifies power balance in a game were highly differentiated levels of power can exist.

I've been thinking about this idea for quite a while (even before it was brought up in making an FF game) and one thought I had was to create a system for calculating the challenge of cross tier encounters.

Example:

As a kid little gremlins are a fair one to one fight. But a city guard is a threat only approachable as a team effort because that is one tier above. A One on one encounter with a guard is suicide and everyone knows it.

By the time the character has moved up to the adult tier. the guard is a fair fight and individual gremlins are push overs, one shot kills. But a team of gremlins could be dangerous if the character stands against them as an individual. Swarms in the dozens could still be challenging encounter for the whole group.

Once the player is at character is at the hero tier than he seriously doesn't give a crap about gremlins anymore (if he encounters them he can just hand waves their destruction through narration) and if he hears about an infestation he'll send a note to some lower tiered characters suggesting they might be interested in cleaning up the mess. He frankly has more important things to do.

I guess I see tier opponents as stackable, and should be designed to auto stack when being faced from a different tier level. This can keep certain opponents relevant (orcs at legendary tier only come in swarms) while streamlining the mechanics used to play them. This could also keep the numbers down by adjust targets depending on the tier rating of the opponent and character without having to keep track of ever increasing numbers.

This would hopefully make the option of mass combat integratable within the core combat rules or just allow for cools scenes where the characters hack through a huge mass of low level opponents with out it being cumbersome and time consuming while still keeping a real sense of danger involved.

[erik]

I like Frank's idea of the civilian tier and the adventurer tier, as minimum separations. A 20th level Expert isn't a 20th, or even 15th, level challenge in regular 3.x

Heh, they could be with the right equipment and a maxed out Use Magic Device skill =-D

[TavishArtair]

A lot of those numeric values should go up with tiers, though, they just are the ones that you use to factor the relative effectiveness of the abilities you've selected, which may or may not include "not dying due to being stabbed in the face."

[Thymos]

You know, the only point of having tiers in the same game system is so that characters can advance from one tier to the next.

If you don't have that then you might as well just make 3 different games, one for each tier.