How powerful/unusual are the heroes and how powerful do they become? (Farmer's boy? Local Hero? Legend?) How fantasic is the setting? (Is there magic? Floating islands? Is there an end to the world?) How fantasic are the people/creatures in the setting? (Are there supernatural monsters? Supernatural races? Only normal things you could find in the real world?) How many people does the arc of the story affect? (The local town? The kingdom? The world? Several universes of reality?)
If each of these has only three settings "high/med/low" then you have 81 different types of fantasy.
I tend to have 3 variables: 1) How powerful are the heroes? 2) How fantastic is the world? This is setting and monsters. 3) How much magic is there?
Your last point - what is the scope of the story - can vary from campaign to campaign while the other variables remain constant in the setting. The Forgotten Realms is high power and medium-high magic but medium fantasy, but how many people the tale affects can vary from a personal tale of the heroes to Realms-shaking events.
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It's been said that 3e has 4 teirs: 1-5: Gritty fantasy 6-10: Heroic fantasy 11-15: Wuxia 16-20: Superheroes (5 if you add "21+:Epic") This can change based on the tone of the game an availability of magic (as well as the starting point buy).
Those tiers themselves strike me as high fantasy. It's certainly possible to design a game like that, but I don't think that 3.5 was it. By level 10 (some) PCs had access to abilities that actual superhero games about actual superheroes (like HERO) caution against letting PCs have access to at all because they're so potently adventure-altering. (And in the case of divination, even earlier.) 3.5 with magic very severely restricted might look like that, I guess. Similarly, I don't think starting point buy has any effect on game tone whatsoever that can actually be noticed by humans. I'm not convinced that without carefully reverse-engineering a character's stats and calculating the point buy from that that somebody watching a game, even if they watched it for hundreds of hours, would ever be able to determine which point by was used. A number of d20 products (though not, to the best of my knowledge, D&D itself) have contributed to the idea that altering point buy has a meaningful effect on tone with little tables that suggest just that, but the effect just isn't very strong at all.
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'" - Gary Gygax
It's been said that 3e has 4 teirs: 1-5: Gritty fantasy 6-10: Heroic fantasy 11-15: Wuxia 16-20: Superheroes (5 if you add "21+:Epic") This can change based on the tone of the game an availability of magic (as well as the starting point buy).
Those tiers themselves strike me as high fantasy. It's certainly possible to design a game like that, but I don't think that 3.5 was it. By level 10 (some) PCs had access to abilities that actual superhero games about actual superheroes (like HERO) caution against letting PCs have access to at all because they're so potently adventure-altering. (And in the case of divination, even earlier.) 3.5 with magic very severely restricted might look like that, I guess. Similarly, I don't think starting point buy has any effect on game tone whatsoever that can actually be noticed by humans. I'm not convinced that without carefully reverse-engineering a character's stats and calculating the point buy from that that somebody watching a game, even if they watched it for hundreds of hours, would ever be able to determine which point by was used. A number of d20 products (though not, to the best of my knowledge, D&D itself) have contributed to the idea that altering point buy has a meaningful effect on tone with little tables that suggest just that, but the effect just isn't very strong at all.
In many ways, the difference between heroic fantasy / swords & sorcery and high fantasy is the scope of the menace and motives of the heroes. D&D can effortlessly move between the two, even in the same campaign or even in the same adventure. The DM might be telling an epic story akin to LotR but the players might be motivated by loot and ony seeking personal goals.
3.5 doesn't need restricted magic to be gritty until level 6+, you just need to play by the rules. Using the expected wealth guidelines, characters shouldn't see a magic sword until level 4 or so.
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In many ways, the difference between heroic fantasy / swords & sorcery and high fantasy is the scope of the menace and motives of the heroes. D&D can effortlessly move between the two, even in the same campaign or even in the same adventure. The DM might be telling an epic story akin to LotR but the players might be motivated by loot and ony seeking personal goals.
3.5 doesn't need restricted magic to be gritty until level 6+, you just need to play by the rules. Using the expected wealth guidelines, characters shouldn't see a magic sword until level 4 or so.
That's the thing, though. Magic Swords - except for extraordinarily powerful ones, swords with world-changing power or perhaps intelligent swords - don't change the sort of story that occurs or what kind of action can or does take place. A game where someone gets a +1 sword ten minutes into the adventure and a game where someone doesn't get one until level eight are essentially identical adventures, unless the sword's magic is played up far more than I feel is at all typical. On the other hand, an adventure where somebody can reverse significant injuries with little trouble is wildly different in tone and plays out very differently than one where that capability doesn't exist.
Quantitative math adjustments like higher point buys or getting (simple) magic items have to be fairly extreme in order to nudge the tone meter even a tiny bit, but qualitative differences like the presence of healing and divination magic that heavily influence the way things play out have dramatically stronger effects.
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I should note that when I place D&D on one end of the scale, I don't mean that as an insult. I like how things work in D&D. I think that a lot of people want to seem like they're hard to the core more gritty = more better I ain't no pansy hard to the core old-schoolin' gangster style with the grittiness or whatever, but I've played a lot of games where the mechanics do lend themselves better to that sort of thing, and I prefer D&D. I don't like games that feel like they're about the characters getting messed up worse and worse until they're essentially disabled. The words "permanent injury table" once sounded sweet and gritty to me; now when I see them in a TTRPG sourcebook I just think of campaigns that sputter out in intensity with time.
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
"Feel free to claim I said anything you like. How's someone going to call you out on it? Are they going to be all like, 'I know all of the things that Gary said, and that's not one of them?'" - Gary Gygax
How powerful/unusual are the heroes and how powerful do they become? (Farmer's boy? Local Hero? Legend?) How fantasic is the setting? (Is there magic? Floating islands? Is there an end to the world?) How fantasic are the people/creatures in the setting? (Are there supernatural monsters? Supernatural races? Only normal things you could find in the real world?) How many people does the arc of the story affect? (The local town? The kingdom? The world? Several universes of reality?)
If each of these has only three settings "high/med/low" then you have 81 different types of fantasy.
I tend to have 3 variables: 1) How powerful are the heroes? 2) How fantastic is the world? This is setting and monsters. 3) How much magic is there?
Your last point - what is the scope of the story - can vary from campaign to campaign while the other variables remain constant in the setting. The Forgotten Realms is high power and medium-high magic but medium fantasy, but how many people the tale affects can vary from a personal tale of the heroes to Realms-shaking events.
I'd combine player level and setting level (in both power and frequency). D&D has never been good at handling settings, monsters, and players at variosly different levels.
To me it is really a convestions f Power and Frequency with Scope being an aspect of how Power and Frequency can affect multiple characters.
Nethir Vale's expanding scope was due to the Underdark and other planes being MUCH stronger than the material plane. Paragon and Epic PCs are high scope because the setting's Surface Material Plane would mostly be curbstomped by the other planes. Giants, Devils, and Drow would curbstomp Nethir Vale's human knights and dwarf soldiers at default. Whereas FR's scope is low because there are so many strong stuff, one guy can't shake things up without being at least a demigod.
Orzel, Halfelven son of Zel, Mystic Ranger, Bane to Dragons, Death to Undeath, Killer of Abyssals, King of the Wilds.
Like I said in the first page, there seems to be two aspects in this conversation Fantastic Power (so powerful the fantasy elements are) and Fantastic Frequency (How common the fantasy elements are)
There are high power low frequency worlds, low power high frequency worlds, high high world, low low (gritty) worlds and everything in between.
Then you can add scope into play
For example, 4e Default Paragon is high frequency, low power, moderate scope Fantasy. 4e's paragon PCs have a ton of "weak" fantastic effects to save the kingdom/realm with.
My personal favourites are high frequency worlds whether it be low power or high power, I can live with a low frequency low power world, but I absolutely hate low frequency high power worlds.
Like I said in the first page, there seems to be two aspects in this conversation Fantastic Power (so powerful the fantasy elements are) and Fantastic Frequency (How common the fantasy elements are)
There are high power low frequency worlds, low power high frequency worlds, high high world, low low (gritty) worlds and everything in between.
Then you can add scope into play
For example, 4e Default Paragon is high frequency, low power, moderate scope Fantasy. 4e's paragon PCs have a ton of "weak" fantastic effects to save the kingdom/realm with.
My personal favourites are high frequency worlds whether it be low power or high power, I can live with a low frequency low power world, but I absolutely hate low frequency high power worlds.
Low frequency high power fantasy is the most common in books and most most media. Many books have only a few mages, magic items, and magical creatures. This is because the author can control believability easier while doing whatever he or she wants with it. You can have a kingdom nor repel or be destroyed if there are only one or three dragons or demons.
But it is harder with real players as controlling the few shifts of massive power is a lot more difficult. So you get a lot of Heroes vs Super Wizard/Dragon/Demon.
But on the other hand, high high fantasy is harder to making a working game with due to balance and creating believable obstacles..
Orzel, Halfelven son of Zel, Mystic Ranger, Bane to Dragons, Death to Undeath, Killer of Abyssals, King of the Wilds.
In many ways, the difference between heroic fantasy / swords & sorcery and high fantasy is the scope of the menace and motives of the heroes. D&D can effortlessly move between the two, even in the same campaign or even in the same adventure. The DM might be telling an epic story akin to LotR but the players might be motivated by loot and ony seeking personal goals.
3.5 doesn't need restricted magic to be gritty until level 6+, you just need to play by the rules. Using the expected wealth guidelines, characters shouldn't see a magic sword until level 4 or so.
I should note that when I place D&D on one end of the scale, I don't mean that as an insult. I like how things work in D&D. I think that a lot of people want to seem like they're hard to the core more gritty = more better I ain't no pansy hard to the core old-schoolin' gangster style with the grittiness or whatever, but I've played a lot of games where the mechanics do lend themselves better to that sort of thing, and I prefer D&D. I don't like games that feel like they're about the characters getting messed up worse and worse until they're essentially disabled. The words "permanent injury table" once sounded sweet and gritty to me; now when I see them in a TTRPG sourcebook I just think of campaigns that sputter out in intensity with time.
I think the problem here is what you expect out of gritty, I dont think gritty adventures are ones where the characters get more and more messed up over time... for me its it bit more of whats in the realm of possiblity, what risks are associated with what actions. In a game where a single PC can wipe the floor with twenty normal humans, or can hit a button and be wisked away from combat or any fear of consequence for their actions, the game takes on a completely different tone. Likewise, in a game where no PC ever really has much chance of death, there is not much risk to playing, and thus not much reward for survival or sense of achievement to actually reach the higher levels. for me thats the key to gritty, risk vs reward.
can a theif of equal level to the PCs have a good chance of killing a PC should he strike with complete suprise? can a group of towns people create any real threat?
as a side note, people talk about how mages are awesome in comparison to fighters... that fighters and melee classes serve little purpose... I think thats because the DM's are not including enough risk in their games. in our AD&D games clerics had the most survivability unfortunately you had to become the party's heal bot... not a lot of fun, second to that was the fighters. mages and theives were the first to die, low hp, cant cast in combat, very poor AC, that was the balance to being able to do so much more, and advance in so many more ways than the admittedly simplistic and limited fighter.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." Gygax
I think the problem here is what you expect out of gritty, I dont think gritty adventures are ones where the characters get more and more messed up over time... for me its it bit more of whats in the realm of possiblity, what risks are associated with what actions. In a game where a single PC can wipe the floor with twenty normal humans, or can hit a button and be wisked away from combat or any fear of consequence for their actions, the game takes on a completely different tone. Likewise, in a game where no PC ever really has much chance of death, there is not much risk to playing, and thus not much reward for survival or sense of achievement to actually reach the higher levels. for me thats the key to gritty, risk vs reward.
I won't exactly argue semantics, but I can tell you what I'm pretty sure most people will agree on as far as what "gritty" means.
"Gritty" means low-power, hardscrabble resources, high lethality games. This really is a combination of 3 "dials" in how you arrange your campaigns, but the term is a common one.
Thusly, when you ask for a "gritty" game, you're wanting to be Joe Schmuck-meister the middle-aged rat-catcher, with a rusty family heirloom sword and a limp to begin with, that sets out with other guys to kill the drake that stole the local nobles daughter. He'll probably die along the way, but not before he maybe kills a few gnolls for some petty silvers he can use to buy a "watered-down healing potion".
What you are talking about - the threat level of the campaign - is not something hard-coded into the game; in fact, it's variable based upon the PCs, because what is hard for some groups will be cakewalks for other groups based only around how optimized some players like to play (not min-maxed, optimized - as in a fighter that likes to be good at fighting so he doesn't die).
Overall, a gamn should support variable threat levels. Some people like needing two back-up characters for whe (not if) their current character dies; some people like having one character get deep into the story and if they were to die, for it to be a dramatic and interesting death - staving off the army of skeletons just long enough for his compatriots to make it out alive, or sacrificing himself to finally kill the evil lich.
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I'm ok with you getting yours as long as I get mine, thats why I keep saying the success of D&D next will almost totally depend on the modularity of the rules, and too much "this is standard everything else is optional" language and that modularity becomes less and less worthwhile as now you have to battle stronger and stronger player expectations.
I would agree gritty means low power, hard scramble resources, high lethality (to me high lethality is about one PC death every 6-10 sessions) I would also add low magic, and slow leveling. A gritty game is just a game slightly more on the realism scale. I could see how a middle aged, disabled, rat cather could be very gritty but that wouldent be any kind of standard as far as I've played... players still get to be bad ass.
as far as heroic deaths... yeah thats what a PC should want 2nd to not dieing, but IMHO it shouldent be guarenteed, a seemingly near pointless death or deaths caused by stupidity should happen. matter of fact I'd say death by stupidity was the most common way PCs would die in our campaigns...
"your trying to lure the giant nigh-invulnerable bog monster out of the swamp by dressing in a cow suit and hanging out on the edge of the water.... um... yeah you get your wish..."
"your climbing up the narow peak where the dragons are... while they are flying in circles around it and you dont have a fly or feather fall... um...ok I guess start making a lot of rolls..."
not heroic at all and yet these were some of the most memorable moments in our game, filled with suspense, often death, and occasional great success the likes of which we can still rave for hours about. take that away, force every death to have great meaning, make it so a PC can only die in extreme circumstances and almost all of what makes an adventure great goes away.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." Gygax
