The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Many RPGs suffer from the problem that they unintentionally make it relatively easy for PCs to "break" the world—that is, they can thoroughly upend a key aspect of the world's status quo, be it economic, political, military, or something else (though often once you've upended things in one arena, it's often just a short step to upending things in other arenas). In D&D, and some superhero games, it can be because even supposedly "mid-tier" PCs are just that powerful. In sci-fi games, it can be because nobody is using the world's handwavium particularly intelligently, creating room for intelligent PCs to conquer the galaxy, or at least the sector. This can be sort of embarrassing for the GM, or whoever designed the setting—if the status quo is so easily swept away, how the heck did it even become the status quo in the first place?

However... and this seems so surprising to me I never seriously considered it until now... might DFRPG avoid this problem? It tries very hard to omit the potentially world-breaking spells from GURPS Magic. For all its embrace of silly TTRPG tropes, avoids suggesting that the PCs can roll up on Ye Olde Magic Item Shoppe and buy whatever world-shaking magic item they please if they have enough gold. And unlike in D&D, no PC has an order of magnitude more hit points than the average soldier.

Can this really be true? Or am I overlooking something important?

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Insufficient thought and playtesting on the part of the setting/game designer.

DFRPG doesn't try to stop "world-breaking" spells and abilities, it removes "adventure avoiding" spells and alters ones that would lead to a PC Wizard (for instance) just becoming a stone mason for big bucks.

Other than that, it really does somewhat embrace the "go gonzo my lad" mentality of the older "Medieval" Fantasy Super-hero games.

However, that can also be easily tempered by the GM just withholding magic items and exp, or gating off some of the more ludicrous "reality-bending' power-ups or putting in lower Attribute and Skill limits (Attributes have a pretty high ceiling and it's expected PCs will buy up Attributes over Skills, and Skills canonically have no limit in DFRPG).

I mean it's whole premise is very much Mike Mearls "Back to the Dungeon" mindset, handwaving Town and abstracting non-'Dungeoneering' social and adventuring rolls down as much as possible.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

To be clear I was asking a rhetorical question.

I think as-written, the handwaving of Town involves stipulating that the world won't break no matter what the PCs do. To quote Exploits p. 13 (emphasis in original):

Delvers can act however they want in the dungeon but should be polite in town. Town is home to markets that absorb limitless treasure. Its clerics and wizards command magic beyond adventurers’ ken, while its homegrown criminals own the streets. It’s able to protect its citizens and the farmers who feed them from roaming monsters (unlike tiny villages, which always need outside assistance!). Its power drops off rapidly outside its walls – but within, heroes who don’t behave heroically will pay.

What I wonder though is whether you need to go so far as postulating spellcasters with NPC-only abilities and such. Weight of numbers, combined with the fact that there's not really any way to "buy off" certain basic mortal vulnerabilities, might be enough. Maybe.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

This answer will tread dangerously on the GURPS not DFRPG line but Im trying to stay in the boundaries.

I think what you have noticed is what I have referred to as lvl1 vs lvl20 reality separation. This is one of the biggest differences with a GURPS based game, though the terminology of explanation with be from one of the other games.

It is observed thusly... a "Lvl1" prospective adventurer walks into a bar, he's a burly fellow who grew up hard but now he's outgrown his families pig farm and doily shop so he's looking to see more of the world and maybe make a name for himself. (Translation he's a Lvl1 Fighter of some variety, roll a D20 three times and take the best number for HPs, a beafy brawler)

Sitting in the corner sipping on a dainty beverage is a small man with bright twinkling eyes. He's a "Lvl20" wizard who's just gone on a walk about to get away from studying the inter-dimensional widget factory he found when he discovered a way to move to other planes of reality. (This is the stereo typical "squishy", rolls a D4 for HPs and cant wear metal armor cause... reasons)

Exactly what you would expect happens and the Lvl1 takes umbrage to the Lvl20s dainty beverage and decides to start making a name for himself.

Heres where the difference in a game systems really show through

Those other systems... The Lvl20 is amused and proceeds to demonstrate that the lvl1 is a putz. Even though the wizard has never rolled better than a 2 for HPs dice, he has 40HPs and because he's leveled he's become much harder to hit inherently (as a result of leveling). He is never once in any danger that this buffoon could harm him, let alone defeat him and take his stuff.
The Lvl1 has an impressive 17Hps and can do a great deal of damage with his strength, and he has a little brass knuckle surprise for anyone he feels might be a challenge. He never actually has a chance, he can't even land a blow on this tiny twig of a man. Even if he could for some reason this scrawny book worm just takes anything he can dish out, its like punching an Ox, it connects but all it seems to do is disgruntle the bovine.

There is no scenario short of the Lvl1 is scripted to win where he can win in this encounter. The Wizard though he's ill prepared to melee with any monster in his weight class, has nothing to fear from something so far beneath him. Their realities no longer intersect in the same place. The Lvl20 has no reason to interact with someone so low except because they wish it. The Lvl1 has nothing he can offer to the Lvl20 that can impact his reality in any meaningful way other than possibly psychologically.

This Lvl20 can engage evenly with the Lvl1 in his element with no issue.

Enter GURPS/DFRPG

This same 100pt fighter is a real danger to a 300pt wizard. Without some preparation, equipment, and possibly a bit of martial training picked up along the way this Fighter could handily beat him if this devolves into fisticuffs.

The fighter has 14HPs and a 12ST, the Wizard has 10ST and 11HPs (innately) he's put the majority of his points into the ability to cast spells, a deep FP pool and other IQ related skills, advantages etc..

If this wizard tries to engage the fighter in his element without the aid of his magics or equipment built/acquired he's likely gonna get a beating.

summation

This is one of the main reasons I switched away from those other games. In GURPS No matter how good a wizard some one has become you are still human. Once you strip away the equipment and ability to prepare in advance a high point character is just as susceptible as a low point character.

You are not operating in a separate reality, you may run in different spheres of influence, you may have differing ability to alter the world around you. You might not have the same impact on the world but its not because you have moved into a different reality, it's because you have a reputation, skills, knowledge and have shown the "people that matter" that you are one of them.

But you still need to eat, look out for an arrow in a dark alley, need a safe place to sleep, just like everyone else.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I think that's a bit exaggerated. If both of these guys are in their street clothes the wizard hits about twice as often (or maybe a little less depending on DX bonuses to AC) and has twice as many HP, but he also inflicts a few points less damage with each hit, especially with those brass knuckles in play. He probably wins a fist fight, but it's not [impossible] for him to lose. What makes him a combat monster in D&D and not GURPS is the GURPS magic system was built around tactical combat, and there are few if any spells that give casters the sort of unit killing powers D&D wizards inherited from their wargaming roots even at fairly modest levels.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

This is a good point. If you trace back D&D's roots far enough, you find it's just assumed important characters can make a major contribution at the tactical level. Before there were even class levels you had game designers saying "hmmm, let's have 'hero' units stipulated to be worth four regular men, and 'superhero' units stipulated to be worth eight regular men".

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I think the "basic mortal vulnerabilities" go a long way toward handling this issue.

A town guard with a crossbow is a viable threat to most PCs. Sure, a prepared delver can counter that threat, but this encourages dramatic moments in the fiction. ("I take an all-out defense and prepare to do an acrobatic dodge!" or "I try to fast-talk the guard while the thief sneaks around behind them!") The reality is that if that crossbow bolt hits, most PCs, especially if they're in street clothes, will be in serious trouble. Give that guard a few similarly armed buddies, and they are likely to be taken seriously.

In default D&D, it is hard to imagine why PCs would take any mundane opposition seriously after the first few levels. A crossbow bolt simply can't seriously harm a character.

I like having the NPC-only stuff in my back pocket, just in case, but I've never felt the need to flex those muscles yet.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

A bigger issue is lack of weapons. If someone goes from twenty odd skill in a swing cut weapon with weapon master to their 1pt in Brawling with their thr -1 cr fist they just cannot take folks down

Fully equipped a 500 odd point character can well have a sporting go with 6 Altar Warriors

Unarmed and unarmored I don't fancy chances 6 62pt guards

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

This is of course relative to DFRPG so sure a 500pt Delver might well include signature gear (which can be argued should be included in their "naked" state), but its also not just about points but about what they are spent on. It has less to do with point values than it has with skills/abilities/advantages relevant to the scene.

I think you might also be overlooking how Defaults might well factor in, but yes a build dependent on external factors that gets stripped of its access is in trouble. Same as a gun fighter that suddenly has no bullets or access to them, or a Mage in a no Mana zone.


All that said, IMO just about any 500pt delver would still be an odds on favorite to succeed in an encounter vs 6x 62pt fighters unless the scene has also been weighted in a way to make it more than just comparing character potentials. If you specifically cripple the character then its apparent they will be crippled.

Which was my point about the "Other game" in comparing a lvl1 fighter to a lvl20 wizard in a naked martial contest where the wizard should be at an extreme disadvantage, is not. (it was pointed out to me that I also neglected the HP bonus from constitution so the wizard even with a crappy average 2 would likely have 60hps which just makes the comparison more evident).

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I was referring in part to Dalin's case of armed guards vs a delver in street clothes

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

It's worth noting that you don't need to get up to 500 points to tear through those 62 point guards. A swashbuckler who, say, spends their 60 points in optional advantages on Striking ST 2 and Extra Attack 2 will already do that pretty well, easily attacking 4 times per second (with rapid strike) and penetrating armor that would be perfectly adequate protection against the blows of a normal fighter (2d+3 cut or more). But DF seems to assume 250 point characters aren't that exceptional, so the solution to out-of-control 250 pointers is to send an equal or greater number of 250 pointers against them (or maybe a 350 point assassin or well, you get the idea).

There's arguably a diminishing returns on having more points if you go by DFRPG RAW, since it doesn't allow more than one rapid strike per turn, caps Extra Attack at 2, etc. But traditionally it's not just the points that make high-end delvers powerful, it's also the absurd arsenals of magic items they accumulate.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I understand, but you insinuated that we were talking about a 'fighter" in plain clothes when you said "20Skill in a swing weapon and weapon master" (that's not in the Farmer template). I'm not trying to be argumentative but depending on how this delver gets to Skill 20 in swing cutting weapon this may not represent a great deal of point investment, regardless its just a piece of 500.

The scenario doesn't exist in a vacuum. Brawling is DX easy and a 500pt fighter will have higher DX naturally, dmg is based on ST which is also something fighters have. I would wonder why anyone would put 1pt into Brawling and not add the 3 more to get a +1 per dmg die. Minus the 60pts to get weapon master and 20 skill where did the other 440pts go (436 if you include 4 for Brawling)?

Finally to be really difficult un-weaponed doesn't mean no rings, potions, magic cloth armor, just that you aren't walking around with a pointy device that says "this end in enemy". How bout a walking stick, that should get a -2 for Broadsword, a baton would get a solid default to dagger/short sword, a leather purse filled with coins.

Or the fighter just planned poorly and put all their money into a sword they aren't allowed to carry in this town and skills in a weapon they don't have on them. This is not a system issue, its a risk reward issue. Choose to take 4 points to get skill 22, or live with skill 21 and put 4 points in some unarmed fighting skill that you may never need. The same argument applies for swimming you fall in water, you swim or die, or you gamble it won't happen and you add those points to bump up Direction Sense. This is the point of a "point buy" system. You make your choices and see where they take you.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I think his point was that said swashbuckler is in a town where he has to check his weapons upon entering town, assume having a melee weapon is a capital crime and the town is able to enforce it. Now how does he deal with 6 guards.

As you said Magic items, or other skills and abilites.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Ah. Though assuming the town can enforce checking weapons to some extent assumes what is to be proved.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

In the very early days of Chainmail, a "man" typically represented a unit made up of 10 men, comparable to a unit in GURPS Mass Combat. But a "hero" represented a single man who was comparable to four of those units—that is, to 40 men. Or so I understood the text.

I could do that just fine in Amber Diceless. But I'm not sure what you would do in GURPS to come up with a hero who was the equal of forty normal men.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Huh. So even the very earliest days of D&D was nerfing the power of heroes. (IIRC I once read a play log of an early Castle Blackmoor adventure where a PC was elevated directly from "normal man" to "hero", which I assume only involved a 4x increase in power at that point.)

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

High DR and high Move plus weapon skills ought to do it. I think a 250 point Bugstiary Coleopteran [40] swashbuckler with Armored Carapace 10 [15], Striking ST 1 [5], and 5 Quirk points toward Move 7 [5] wielding a rapier and a heavy cloak probably has a better than 50% chance of victory against 40 hoplites with ST 12 and Broadsword-11, medium shields, and heavy leather armor. Move and Attack to keep the number of guys you're engaging at any given moment low, Attack opportunistically whenever it wouldn't lead to getting surrounded. If they have to Move and Attack as well, they can only hit even random hit locations on a 7 or better, so eye hits will be very rare, and your Luck will hopefully protect you.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

This is not a "problem," this is the players deciding they want a different kind of adventure than the GM thought. If the GM does not want to run that kind of an adventure they should talk with the players.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

See 'unintentionally'. There's nothing wrong with world breaking stuff, it's just bad to be surprised by it.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Interesting tidbit: Gygax said in 2005 that Chainmail heroes were only designed to exist in 1:1 scale combats ("Man-to-Man"), never 20:1 scale mass combats. So heroes were only worth 4 normal men, not 40.

RFisher: Under Heroes, does "They have the fighting ability of four figures" mean that they are equivalent to 4 men or 80 men?

Gygax: Heroes are used only in Man-to-Man play, so one is equal to four normal men.

RFisher: I understand that hero v. hero would be resolved on the Fantasy Combat Table. Hero v. normal forces would be resolved on the regular Combat Table. (The hero being classed as heavy foot, armored foot, light horse, &c. as fit the particular hero.) But were heroes & other things from the Fantasy Supplement ever used with the man-to-man rules? If so, how?

Gygax: I am quite at a loss to answer that, as the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20.

Source: https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/...asy-scale.html

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

That makes more sense. A 250-point Knight is easily the equivalent of four 62-point knights from DtG.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Good to note that a housecat can kill four normal wizards, not forty.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Huh? How? Joking?!

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

What is DtG?

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

A 1st level wizard hero is equal to four normal wizards. A housecat famously has better than average odds against a 1st level wizard in 1e D&D. Therefore Mr. Floofs can murder four ordinary wizards as easily as one 1st level one.

Delvers to Grow

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

By 3e it is Commoners that Mr Floofs can murder with abandon, Wizards at least have spells at lvl 1 in 3e.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

1st-level wizards have always had spells in D&D. 1st-level clerics did not in BECMI.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Hmmm. That is plausible but without testing I'm unsure whether the 250 point guy is actually good enough to match four guys. The 62 pointers have more attacks and aggregate HP, and more ability to surround the target, but lower speed and worse defense.

I honestly think they're comparable enough that it might come down to equipment and tactics.

Was that your point?

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

Lower speed, lower Defense, lower skill, lower damage.

The 250 pointer should be able to drop one foe from the fight every turn, possibly more than one with luck (crippling hits to arms or legs mostly). With good tactics or luck the 250 guy might not even be hit. Inversely it would take both luck and tactics for all four 62ers to survive, let alone survive unscathed.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I don't think it would be that easy, but am interested in gaming it out if you are.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I'll note, I'm completely looking at this from the standpoint of melee professions, Barbarian, Knight, Swashbuckler. Probably Scout too if they've got a decent range between themselves and they all stand around shooting while not in cover...

Depending on build, Holy Warrior can take 4 62 point versions of a Holy Warrior, but it's tight because some HW abilities will be absolutely useless, while others will be strong but swingy. Probably the same with a Cleric, depending on build, as the 250er can much more easily heal himself during a fight, more spells, higher skill, but he's not much better at physically fighting than 4 Acolytes.

Wizard? I'm not even going to try to predict that, as the 250 point Wizard isn't much better in a non-magic fight than an Apprentice, and four opponent casters that synergize well, even with lower skills and weaker spells might pull of an easy victory.

For casters it really comes down to build.

Without the Denizens book, I don't think a Thief can handle four 62 point cut-throats at all.

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

A spell. Which one largely determined your survival versus a cat. Did ordinary wizard troops get one spell per fireteam?

Re: The ability of DFRPG PCs to "break" the world
 

I am also thinking specifically of Knights. I think it ultimately comes down to gear and tactics.

The 250 point Knight has a better chance if he's heavily armored: DR 7ish will give him better odds of surviving when surrounded. 62 point knights have pretty fair odds of hitting feet/hands, but DR 7 would probably ensure that he doesn't get crippled, I think, although it also depends on the build and equipment choices made by the OPFOR. E.g. 2d+5 fine axes wielded by halfogres have a good chance of crippling him anyway. Even regular 1d+5ish greatswords wielded by humans might be enough though. I'm not sure without gaming it out--and I'm not sure what kind of 250 pointer you have in mind in the first place.