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I understand, Trollbill, but are living campaigns the place for competitive play? Trying to prove yourself against other tables... in a campaign that sees a lot of new and casual players, that has RPers as much as optimizers... that is a really nebulous and widely ranging target.

I think those wanting a competitive spirit should just ask their DM to run things hard. You can even come up with a set of Glory type of changes. For example, try asking your DM to do the following:

• Run everything as written, only correcting to turn bad foe tactics into good tactics.
• Add +2 to hit to all monster attacks
• Add +(3/tier) to all monster damage. (H would add 3 dmg, P would add 6, E adds 9)
• Solos can save against any effect on two initiative counts (their own and a special one just for an extra save).

You can come up with other things, such as reducing recharge rates for non-controlling powers, but the above changes are less swingy and in general are more reliably challenging. You could even have this on-call. Maybe you insult the ancestors of the monsters and that triggers the above, so you can do it only when needed.

To me, that kind of change is much more of a "proof of how good you are" than asking the entire campaign to consistently hit some specific level of challenge. A specific level of challenge will undoubtedly miss the mark of what is reasonable for many levels (and will likely not be what "very strong" tables desire).

What we have currently is difficulty based on XP guidelines. That is what really sets the limit, but it is a very limited determinant in that the same XP can produce an easy encounter or a very difficult one (with monster synergies, terrain synergies, good tactics, strong monsters for the XP cost, etc.). Personally, I think this is an ok way to do it, with playtesting being used to verify the challenge is reasonable and the overall target being that an average appropriately-tiered table can succeed. In a few cases (specials, story arc conclusions) you have higher XP and should also see a harder challenge design. Here it may be ok to aim for an average table to succeed less often - but such a measurement is really very rough. Playtesting can only really tell you "it is hard" and maybe why, but won't give you anything like "60% of casual tables will succeed". It is very common for the feedback from three tables to be "very easy, put in more x", "very hard, take away x", "seemed fine".

Bgibbons makes good points about tier. I feel comfortable enough with tiering and DMing to be able to take tier into account when determining how to DME. I don't know if others feel this way. When a table is of low average party level but wants high, I take that into account and won't make the same adjustment I would make if a reasonable-for-tier table is up against a very cheesy/unfair encounter. If a table playing up is having a hard time, my general approach is to run the first encounter as written and then ask them if they want to switch to low tier (and only get low tier rewards) or continue on and face likely death. If a table playing at-tier or down is having a tough time, then I am more likely to pull a few punches to make it fun. 

Sep 5, 2010 -- 11:26PM, jsaint wrote:

what is wrong with killing players?  to be clear, i don't mean somehow treating them unfairly but instead mean simply having players die in an encounter?

what is wrong with wiping out a party?

when you soft ball an adventure, when you artificially weaken a module, you cheat the players of a sense of accomplishment.  what if another party had to use guile, strategy, or just plain well built characters to overcome the same module.

do we really have such a low opinion of our players that we think they can't handle challenge?

i am the crazy person who makes posts about using coup de grace on downed players because it is obviously the best strategy for a monster to use.  i am the person who rolls in relatively plain view of my players so that they know when i missed a critical attack, it was because i missed and not because i have no respect the maturity of my players.  so far they don't bother too look.

apparently i am also the bad guy.

i long for game balance,  i want intimidate to surrender clarified (and removed).  i want saving throw penalties removed completely.

i wish more of you were the bad guys too.

when you keep lowering the bar, people dont bother to rise above it.  they lower themselves to it.

I beleive I understand what you are saying here. I've read the other posts as well.

I would like to ask you a few questions:


1. When you are a player what does the DM have to do so you have a fun enjoyable time?

2. As a player, do you create optiminal characters or just make concept characters?

3. As a player if you areat an RPG event and at a table with a player whom you know is terrible at the role they are going to play.  What do you do?

4. Have you ever lost a character at an RPGA event do to poor player strategies?

5. What do you think as a player is the most important part of an RPGA event?

6. What do you thing as a DM is the most important part of an RPGA event?


Please take the time to answer my questions jsaint so I can completely understand where you are coming from.


If anyone else wants to answer these questions please feel free to do so.