What needs to be removed to make high level dungeons work?

[violence in the media]

Okay. So, I'm going to break these down and you tell me if I got them right.
Scenario 1: I decide, as a player, to not pursue my DM's plot hook.
Scenario 2: I decide to pursue my DM's plot hook and then I complete the adventure early because I did something the DM did not expect.
Please tell me what I'm missing because apparently I'm missing something.

Yeah, that's pretty accurate. I think with both scenarios you're assuming that there is only the given plot hook, whereas I'm assuming that there are multiple plot hooks available in addition to the option to strike off into the wilderness. So, whether or not I ignore a specific plot hook, or wrap one up faster than you expected, is kind of meaningless. There is other stuff to go do. Please correct me if that isn't the case.

[FatR]

I've never heard of any of those and neither has anyone I know in real life. So that only proves my point. Those stories didn't get popularity because they're not as good.

That only proves that your tastes are narrow (and Google-fu weak).

Everyone has heard of Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian.

Which have fuck-all to do with DnD past about level 5. In fact, both were built on the assumption that the characters are puny mortals who challenge overwhelming forces of supernatural evil, and yet win, because of their virtue and badassery, respectively. But DnD characters are not puny mortals past low levels. Besides, the main plot of LotR is all about what you call "skipping the adventure". Characters were just too weak to skip fighting Sauron and his host as efficiently as mid-to-high level DnD characters can do.

Hell just about any popular action movie I can think of involves someone fighting through minions.

That's because the overwhelming majority of action movies star vanilla action heroes, who don't have a choice. But I still name a couple of popular action movies with no minion fights, as far as I can remember:
- First Die Hard (all of the robbers are named opponents who pose a deadly threat to the PC).
- The Princess Bride (Inigo wastes several guards at the beginning of his fight with Count Rugen... but well, that's the beginning of a boss encounter).
- Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf.

I can add a few more if we count movies, where PCs did not fight any minions, but other characters did, and a lot more if we exclude unnamed but actually threatening enemy combatants from the definition of "minion". So, considering that I'm not an action movie affictionado, this once again proves that your experiences simply are narrow. And you stick to them to the point of disconnect from reality.

[sabs]

To be fair in the Princess Bride, those 4 guards he wastes? They're supposed to be the 4 best swordsman in the kingdom.

"Inigo slew the fourth before the first's body had touch the floor."

That scene is suppose to represent WHY Count Rugen chose to run like a bitch. Because He couldn't beat those 4 guys, and Inigo just punked them like they were 1st graders.

Dragon Ball Z also has no minion fights.

[Swordslinger]

That's because the overwhelming majority of action movies star vanilla action heroes, who don't have a choice. But I still name a couple of popular action movies with no minion fights, as far as I can remember:
- First Die Hard (all of the robbers are named opponents who pose a deadly threat to the PC).
- The Princess Bride (Inigo wastes several guards at the beginning of his fight with Count Rugen... but well, that's the beginning of a boss encounter).
- Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf.

I don't count Die Hard, because there are multiple foes that are killed. The fact that they have names doesn't necessarily matter. There's still multiple encounters and there's no doubt that Hans is the head villain. I don't mean that all minions have to be faceless stormtroopers, only that you're having battle scenes with people other than the main villain and his personal guard.

The Die Hard series is actually a good display of what D&D should probably be like. You've got a hero that fights multiple battles that gets worn down and wounded as time goes on. Sometimes he finds weapons, sometimes he burns resources he had, etc.

There is another problem too with one encounter, battles don't take long enough. You can't go DBZ-style where one fight lasts the entire season. Quite simply, the game itself is based off the idea that you're going to have more than one fight in a day. So in any case if you have an adventure with only one battle, your adventure will be over ridiculously quickly.

[Maxus]

Dragon Ball Z also has no minion fights.

I gotta disagree. Krillin and Gohan take out low-level bitches when they first get on Namek. That Bardock movie also had a bit with the hit squad which came to take out Bardock's crew. He slaughtered most of them, and then got blindsided by Dodoria.

Why, yes, I do watch DBZ Abridged and so I remember this shit better than I should.

[/nerd]

[Kaelik]

Dragon Ball Z also has no minion fights.

I gotta disagree. Krillin and Gohan take out low-level bitches when they first get on Namek. That Bardock movie also had a bit with the hit squad which came to take out Bardock's crew. He slaughtered most of them, and then got blindsided by Dodoria.

Why, yes, I do watch DBZ Abridged and so I remember this shit better than I should.

[/nerd]

First of all, Fights between minions, and other minions, are not minion fights. When Krillian is fighting anyone ever after then end of the Vegeta arc, yah, that person is not someone that is really going to be a threat to Goku, but they are still a threat to Krillian.

2) Lots of "Minions" get killed all the time in DBZ, but that doesn't mean they are actually fights. When someone like Goku on Nameic can fight Genyu or Freeza, and win, and he hilariously slaughters the Genyu force besides Genyu without powering up, or using any technic worth even a name, that's not really a fight at all, it's pretty much exactly like a level 20 Incantatrix fighting a housecat, even if the Wizard uses his Persisted Shapechange to turn into a Dragon, and then murder that cat, it's still not actually a fight.

[tzor]

I'm rather tired of you, Frank, pretending that your personal setting is DnD.

Dude, I'm not even talking about my personal setting. I'm talking about a game where you kill people and take their stuff.

Technically speaking, the basic game is that you take stuff and avoid obstacles that get in the way... often requiring killing things. That's the Dungeons in the old "Dungeons and Dragons" name. The idea is that the owner of the stuff is long dead and gone. In the second part of the name the dragons, is the notion of people who have stuff that they stole from others. (Dragon's don't work 9-5 on a five day work week.)

The basic logic of the game does not go against the notion of private property because it handwaves the two major sources of wealth for the players, it is either no longer owned by anyone (the notion of antiquities belonging to the people as a whole is not really a private property issue) or is not legally owned by the person holding it at the time.

[Novembermike]

In the second part of the name the dragons, is the notion of people who have stuff that they stole from others. (Dragon's don't work 9-5 on a five day work week.)

Locke's theory of private property is labor based. If you aren't utilizing your private property then it isn't your property. I'm not sure that Dragons are utilizing their wealth in any useful way and the adventurers could use the weapons, armor, magic items etc.

I think it all works out.

[hyzmarca]

But in the modern world it is perfectly feasible to kill people and take their stuff. It happens all the time. And probably means that property ownership as an intrinsic natural right is bullshit, is doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of social institutions are predicated on the assumption that it is not.

But that's exactly the problem. In the modern world, you have to hide murder and theft forever, because society at large will avenge them in the name of defending private property and the "rights" to life and ownership. In D&D, you announce to people at large that killing people ad taking their stuff is your career. And no one considers your earnings "stolen" and tries to return them to the heirs of your victims.

-Username17

That's a jurisdictional issue, though, rather than a philosophical one. D&D societies tend to agree on the concepts of private property and right to live. They just don't give a crap about those people over there across the hill.

The people of France generally agree that raping teenage girls is a bad thing, but it's not like Roman Polanski has to hide his crimes. He just has to restrict his travel to places that won't extradite to the USA. But its not like he can just yank out his dick in front of the Arc de Triumph and violate anyone who passes by without any sort of consequences.

The Die Hard series is actually a good display of what D&D should probably be like. You've got a hero that fights multiple battles that gets worn down and wounded as time goes on. Sometimes he finds weapons, sometimes he burns resources he had, etc.

In Die Hard his goal is to save the hostages. He only kills the bad guys because they are threats to the hostages. The Nakatomi Plaza is a sandbox where McClain systematically eliminates threats to his goal.

[Wrathzog]

Yeah, that's pretty accurate. I think with both scenarios you're assuming that there is only the given plot hook, whereas I'm assuming that there are multiple plot hooks available in addition to the option to strike off into the wilderness. So, whether or not I ignore a specific plot hook, or wrap one up faster than you expected, is kind of meaningless. There is other stuff to go do. Please correct me if that isn't the case.

I don't see how it's relevant. Even in the case that both scenarios are actually being played out simultaneously, they're both very distinct things in my head.
Agree to Disagree?

D&D societies tend to agree on the concepts of private property and right to live. They just don't give a crap about those people over there across the hill.

The problem is that no one important cares about what your society thinks of personal rights. More important than setting up rules of society is the ability to enforce your rules of society.
Might makes right in D&D worlds and that's all there is to it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

On one hand, private property doesn't really exist in D&D because this is before the invention of the social contract. You could make an argument that people from vassals on up are part of an implicit social contract and thus can (and I would be sympathetic to it), but serfs can not by definition really own property under the Enlightenment definition so much as they have possessions that their masters are not interested in and thus have a reasonable expectation to use at will without it being taken away.

On the other hand, this is really kind of splitting hairs. When people think of property they usually mean 'possessions that I can exclude the vast majority of people from using when I feel like' and any successful pre-Stalinism government will tacitly enforce this to an extent so they don't have to deal with the fallout of people stealing mangy sheep from each other. In other words, a serf can make a good bet that if they have something that their masters aren't interested in their government will agree to let the serf exclude other serfs from taking it in order to reduce strife. Since peasant stuff sucks anus and they rarely venture very far from where they work, this state of affairs is pretty much indistinguishable from how modern property work. Yes, Steve the Crap-Covered Farmer, you kill any other peasant that looks at your syphilis-ridden wife or mangy donkey or broken-down plow funny. I as your vassal don't want that stuff anyway.

Make no mistake, though, if the peasant discovers a +4 greatsword or gold deposits in the creek it is not going to be theirs, even if it's outside of their master's holdings. Not even the worst excesses of laissez-faire capitalism was this harsh, but this shit happens all of the time with despotic governments.


Now this is how the system works when it's firing on all cylinders. Imagine how much shittier things get when you throw in goblins and gnoll raiders and such into the mix.

[FatR]

Dude, I'm not even talking about my personal setting. I'm talking about a game where you kill people and take their stuff. That fact alone means that Lockeian Private Property does not exist.

Killing people and taking their stuff is completely integral to D&D. Any setting that has that by definition does not and cannot have "ownership" in the modern sense of the term.

-Username17

Killing people and taking their stuff was completely integral to the civilization that invented the concept of Lockeian Private Property (assuming you mean under that what I think you mean) to begin with at least until the end of colonialism. Ancient Rome was entirely built on killing people and taking their stuff, yet it had both private property and the idea of rule of law. And similarly to them, adventurers' violence in DnD was always supposed to be primarily applied externally. As mentioned upthread, the game is called Dungeons and Dragons, not Lords and Treasuries, because you are primarily supposed to be an adventurer in the original sense of the world - a man who ventures into unknown and untamed corners of the world in search of fame and fortune. You either plunder ancient tombs which wealth doesn't belong to anyone, or rob monsters that are completely hostile to your entire civilization and species (implications of such hostility are very often unfortunate, but its existence in DnD since forever, is a fact of life).

Now, why successful adventurers don't try to play at four-men-Caesar's-legions, at least not on regular basis? Well, answers here are determined by the setting, rather than by the system. Maybe there is a plateau of levels, which is reached by many people, but exceeded by very few, practically only PCs and the the Big Bad, leading to a semi-normal balance of interests within the civilization. Maybe the top power group in the setting is interested in maintaining the civilized society, so any really grand-scale troublemakers will get a visit by Batman Wizard and Druidean Manhunter. Can work even if that group is quite evil - blasted ruins cannot produce fine wines and top-class whores for them, and they don't want to go back to extorting turnips from dirty peasants. Maybe such group existed until a few years ago, but is not around anymore, so you can explain both why the world wasn't ruined before, and why it can well be ruined now, if PCs fail. Whatever. DnD does not actually demand one particular solution to be true.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Maybe the top power group in the setting is interested in maintaining the civilized society, so any really grand-scale troublemakers will get a visit by Batman Wizard and Druidean Manhunter. Can work even if that group is quite evil - blasted ruins cannot produce fine wines and top-class whores for them, and they don't want to go back to extorting turnips from dirty peasants.

This works as an assumption for modern-day superheroics, but not really for the medieval Europe pastiche D&D. Civilization, even when not threatened by mind flayer hordes or magical diseases or whatever, is still functioning at a shitty level. I mean, you read descriptions of good gods and epic level heroes and whatnot and nowhere does it say anything like 'Mordenkainen is extremely displeased that 90% of the people are fucking digging in the dirt with sticks for the past 800 years rather than making themselves pretty and reading his books and watching television'--the closest D&D character I have ever seen to wanting to advance civilization out of its miserable existence rather than stay content with the Status Quo is fucking RAISTLIN and that was supposed to be his 'omg he's flipped' moment.

It's not really that hard to imagine why this is so. Unless high-level characters have reality warping powers to the extent that would make Dragonball characters blanch, if you want a better civilization it has to come from the bottom up. I wouldn't trade life as a poor 21st century college student for the richest king in the pre-Industrial age. But people also have a tendency to view their society as unchanging and the pinnacle of existence, even if they're coming off of the heels of an apocalypse. When Charlemange put together his scrabbly empire his first thought wasn't 'how can we resurrect the wonders of Rome', it was 'how can I keep my own power'.

The idea that society could be something much better than it is a relatively contemporary POV. It would be especially inflexible in D&D because you seriously have critters that have a life expectancy of 300 years as opposed to 40-90. I mean if you had people who could live to be 400 years old in the real world then we'd probably still be in the Dark Ages.

But anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the idea of there being a secret cabal of superheroes trying to maintain the trappings of civilization is futile when the height of civilization is living in an unventilated brick fortress and having a noble designated to wipe your own ass. It'd be one thing if the defenders of civilization actually had as goals 'forge a lasting peace between all races', 'end manorialism forever', 'bring mass literacy and science education to the masses' but the closest we ever get to any characters having goals like that is 'bring back the wonders of ancient civilization'. But rarely, if ever, is this goal defined in terms of making the lives of the common citizens any better. It's always in terms of bring back superweapons/machines, make ourselves shiny and powerful again, give leftover crumbs of utopia to the little people. And few critters actually get that far in their outlook; like I said, when you read the descriptions of the superpowered peoples they're just interested in upholding the shitty status quo.

[mean_liar]

Man, this shit has fucking wandered way the fuck off-topic.

[Swordslinger]

In Die Hard his goal is to save the hostages. He only kills the bad guys because they are threats to the hostages. The Nakatomi Plaza is a sandbox where McClain systematically eliminates threats to his goal.

And that's exactly what good D&D should look like. There's a structured setting, the Nakatomi building, and McClain ends up wiping out all the bad guys by the end, and he uses a variety of strategies to take them down. He doesn't skip any encounters, though his actions also shape what the bad guys do, as opposed to the bad guys just sitting in one room the entire time.

On the other debate about property ownership: D&D most certainly has a concept of ownership, at least for the higher classes. If a knight rode to town on his horse and got off it to go to the tavern, if someone else jumped on it and rode off, he'd be viewed as a horse thief, because the horse belonged to the knight. People in D&D land will get pissed if you take their stuff, naturally the only question is what they're going to do about it.

As for injustices to the rights of the poor, the ruler makes the laws and the lesser have to abide by them. It's similar to real world medieval scenarios except revolutions are much more unlikely, given that King Louis can singehandedly kick ass when they try to chop off his head. This means that it's very unlikely that D&D civilization will ever evolve beyond the feudal hierarchy. Society will always be ruled by a higher class, because that higher class is actually better by a ridiculous amount.

To make matters worse, peasants don't contribute a heck of a lot to a D&D setting. There's already magic to make food and build castles. The reason peasants are used at all is because they're cheap oppress-able labor. And that means that it's very unlikely anyone really cares about them either.

[mean_liar]

It's not really that hard to imagine why this is so. Unless high-level characters have reality warping powers to the extent that would make Dragonball characters blanch, if you want a better civilization it has to come from the bottom up.

If Genesis is a 9th level spell, then Summon Sanitary Sewer has to be what, 6th? Reality-warping change can come from the top-down.

[sabs]

Purify Food and Drink:
Level 0
1 cu ft/level of contaminated food and drink. A level 1 Cleric can purify 8 gallons of water a day with basically no impact on their daily spells.


Plant Growth (enrichment)
Level 3 Druid/Plant/Ranger
Targets plants within 1/2 a mile radius. Raising productivity over the course of the net year by +1/3

That means, that they can have consistant bumper crops.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If Genesis is a 9th level spell, then Summon Sanitary Sewer has to be what, 6th? Reality-warping change can come from the top-down.

That's not quite what I meant. The way magic works in D&D is that the superpowered badasses get access to Summon Sanitary Sewer and Genesis rather than the masses.

This would be fine, but political science is still in its infancy. This kind of segregation is fine in DC Comics and Avatar: The Last Airbender where people with l33t superpowers are seen as people with specialized skills (like a brain surgeon or a general) rather than conquerers, but in the medieval Europe pastiche of D&D this kind of power quickly goes to peoples' heads. I mean for God's sake not only do we have divine right of kings but it's a hardcoded fact.

If you don't want to have this kind of hellhole then you need to implement a system where muggles and peasants don't have to suck the cocks of wizards and clerics in order just to live, let alone thrive. The typical answer to this has been technology, but if you can make it so that 1000 peasants participating in a magical festival ritual for a week can drain a swamp and purify the undead spirits within it it can still run on magic.

That's really your only choices. Either advance the social landscape or let the masses use magic. And considering that D&D has shit like actual gods of mass murder and implacable cannibal hordes it'll probably be easier to do the latter.

[Lago PARANOIA]

sabs, those are terrible spells. 20 castings of purify water a day will barely irrigate an acre of a potato field. A third increase in productivity of fields before the green Revolution is laughable.

[echoVanguard]

Man, this shit has fucking wandered way the fuck off-topic.

Honestly, that seems to be the norm on this forum rather than the exception.

echo

[Swordslinger]

If Genesis is a 9th level spell, then Summon Sanitary Sewer has to be what, 6th? Reality-warping change can come from the top-down.

Most advances in living conditions have come from the top down. Refrigerators, electricity and modern medicine is researched by scientists. They were then produced by companies and eventually made their way down to the people.

The real problem in D&D land is that the poor don't have anything to offer in exchange for advances.

[K]

The thing about DnD Land is that spellcasters come from all walks of life. So plucky peasants with a serious grudge against the aristocracy become clerics and druids and sorcerers, and I could see some of those guys actually wanting to use their magic to improve the lives of their family/town/tribe.

That being said, I'd think the property rights of the nobles are enforced by the nobles, many of which are spellcasters of various sorts (some recruited from the peasants).

I don't think that a lot of spellcasters even want political power. I mean, once I can summon demons or something I can also just build a fortress in a remote mountain or desert or something and teleport whatever I want to me.

This means that a lot of political leaders are just anyone who is left. The king might just be a 3rd level Aristocrat simply because he's smart enough to not piss off heroes, he's an able administrator, and no one else wants the job since it takes time away from the succubus harem.

[mean_liar]

I have always assumed that anyone that can afford Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Teleport and an Everfull Purse, by items or spell AND still adventures or gives a shit about the rest of the world must have some serious ideological axe to grind.

I mean... you win, right? A mansion staffed with servants and limitless food and petty cash. The lazy and easily-contented are going to just drop off right there.

[fbmf]

In Die Hard his goal is to save the hostages. He only kills the bad guys because they are threats to the hostages. The Nakatomi Plaza is a sandbox where McClain systematically eliminates threats to his goal.

And that's exactly what good D&D should look like. There's a structured setting, the Nakatomi building, and McClain ends up wiping out all the bad guys by the end, and he uses a variety of strategies to take them down. He doesn't skip any encounters...

Bullshit.

Bruce Willis says the signature line of the film just before skipping an encounter.

Seriously, go back and watch it. The DM sets up an encounter and J.M. sneaks away just before initiative is about to be rolled.

Game On,
fbmf

[erik]

Yah. Maybe there is a 3rd level Aristocrat who administrates, but if there's a stronger person who wants the job, then they get it.

Spellcasters have family, friends, ideologies, and people that they simply do not like. I have to imagine that a number of them will prosecute their views as they see fit, essentially making them the law of the land. A government is going to have a hell of a time being legitimate if it cannot enforce its rule on inhabitants, especially if some other power base routinely enforces its own rule.