New DM’s: Have fun reskinning and playing with keywords

This is exactly why DnD4 has no appeal to me. Monsters are just “stuff” held together by keywords. I was never able to figure out why DnD4 left such a bad taste in my mouth, but you put your finger on it exactly.

That isn’t to say the DnD4 doesn’t have its place and followers. I just don’t like thinking that abstractly (as the GM) and then simplifying what i perceive (as a player). Just not for me.

catdragon: By “stuff” do you mean attack mechanics, movement types/rates, resistances, and vulnerabilities? Because if you do, I’m not clear on what else you expect a monster to be. I mean, to use the example here, if you think the dinosaur spitter is still too much like the drow sniper, the Monster Builder lets you add a new attack (razor claw, maybe) or a new movement type (jump 6 squares as a move action, maybe) or a group attack enhancement (bonuses to hit/dam when they attack in groups).

Are you suggesting that various types of monsters should always be more defined and have certain characteristics? If so, D&D4e lets you do that to your heart’s content.

It’s not a question of thinking abstractly and simplifying for the player. It’s a question of nearly limitless mechanical customization and flavor choice in the service of whatever story the DM and the PC are trying to tell. D&D4e is the least cumbersome system I’ve seen that still retains enough of a crunchy framework for players and the DM to know what it is they can and can’t do.

If you’re saying that there are too many options, well, then I guess you could always, you know, NOT use the options you don’t like. Just an idea… 🙂

I’m running a superhero campaign with 4E rules, and re-skinning has been my bread and butter for baddie design. I change the names and keywords, and make logical modifications to the powers, and boom, a goblin archer becomes a bank-robbing goon. The players use it, too– they change the names of their powers to seem less hack-and-slash and more Justice League. 🙂

@catdragon – Really, how is this any different than any other edition of D&D? Need a big bad kobold for OD&D? Use a bugbear and call it a kobold.

I’ve done this a few times. Even with just humanoid characters (like bandits or guards) it can make a world of difference to the perceptions of the players and thus there immersion/involvement in the game world. It’s easier on me when I GM too. Instead of looking around through my books or Adventure Tools for specific kinds of monsters, I can take the most ~interesting~ monster then flavor it and mechanically tweak it appropriate to the encounter. It’s something I’ve done with previous editions as well, except much easier and simpler to do in 4e.

How do you explain the re-skinned Darkfire power, in narrative terms? In the case of the drow, he/she is outlining their target in fire that makes them easier to hit. How do you explain what the spitter is doing that achieves the same effect?

I’d vote eliminate. Your explanation doesn’t cover why it’s an attack against Reflex (yours sounds like vs. Will) and it also doesn’t explain why the target would grant CA to everyone and not just to the attacking spitter.

Just MHO. 🙂

Wow, I guess I need to learn to read what you actually write. Sorry about that. 🙂

An older guy I play 4e with has never played anything but OD&D (which he’s been doing consistently since the ’70s), and certainly has his gripes about this system. One of his complaints is the lack of thought given to monster ecology. Open up any Monster(ous) Manual from a previous edition, and you’ll see over half of the entry devoted to the sorts of environments the creature lives in, what their social groups are like, all that. Now you get a statblock, a paragraph or two to read to the players on a successful monster knowledge check, and little else.

Personally, I like it better this way. As a DM, I can thumb through the MM with fewer preconceived notions leaping at me from the page. A goblin tribe functions how I say a goblin tribe functions, and there’s nothing to say the next one encountered won’t have an entirely different culture, etc. I like have dozens of example goblins to pick from (there are seriously a lot of goblinoids). I like that if I want to throw in an outcast tribe of goblins twisted by the shadowfell, I can use shader-kai, virtual unmodified, and the players will never know.

I don’t think abstract is simple. In fact, the more abstract the monster entries, the more work the DM has to do to make the creatures come alive. But that also means more possibilities.

I’d like to see reskinning be an option in the character builder. Being able to print out a “legit” character with renamed powers and reworded flavor text would be wonderful.

I’ve also thought 4e would make a great superhero game, and this would make that all the better.

I applaud this article. This is a big lesson that any and every DM needs to learn. It’s very appropriate, regardless of the system you’re running to learn how to refluff creatures and effects to fit the style of game you want to run. I hope there are new DMs out there who read this and start using it in their games

Apologies, I actually meant http://www.flavortext.wordpress.com

…who forgets the address to their own blog!?

WotC has gotten off the high horse of ‘written in stone’ rules. They recognized folks were making tons of house rules. Why fight it? Why not make a game that has a fair amount of adaptability. Give some frameworks (exp budget, expected defenses and damage output/lvl), and let the DM run with it. It works.

@Manny, M&M is a brilliant superhero roleplaying game. I’m not the greatest rules lawyer at the best of times, but once you get past the learning curve, the possibilities are almost endless. I am curious to see how 4e stands up as an alternative, however.

This is everything I have been thinking lately and not suprisingly, I have a few questions.

First let me say that I was tooling around with creating a Half-Orc Warden. His (simple) back story was that he was a simple farmer and became one with the land, etc- the wardens powers were kind of perfect for this, but some of the flavor text wasn’t perfect as I was choosing the powers. But then I thought, well, ‘whats the difference as long as a burst 3 is now difficult terrain?’ It doesn’t have to be “briars” or whatever it states, it can be potato roots sprouting up. Keep in mind, this is before I really read any of the PH content, where it -suggests- changing the flavor text to fit your every need. (I especially like the suggestion of creating a “kung-fu” style game and changing “flight” to crazy anime jumps)

This is hands down the reason why come spring I am switching to D&D 4e. I have been GMing another system (7th Sea) for awhile now, and mechanically it’s all completely unbalanced. I am drawn to being able to change the creativity of the flavor ANY WAY I want, and have that solid, mechanical balance already worked out. After all- I am NOT a game designer, nor have I ever claimed to be! WoTC has given me whet I needed, a SOLID mechanical balance with absolutely no attachment to the flavor. It’s a home brew GM’s dream. Whats to say that the Area Burst 2 “Combust” isn’t a Grenade explosion? There are a lot of possibilities.

My questions however, can hopefully be answered, since this seems like the perfect discussion:

1. Keyword interchangeability – I know that it could probably work on monsters and NPC’s alright- but what happens when you start switching around damage types on, say a wizard. What if you turned ALL of a wizards damage types into Lightning damage and then took up a feat that amplified all lightning damage? A. Does such a feat even exist? and B. Doesn’t that throw the balance off all of a sudden?

2. Defense Type Interchangeability – My example above, Combust, which is a Area burst 2 within 20. If I was to create a modern 4e game using the mechanic’s of a DnD class, hurling a grenade wouldn’t be an Intelligence vs. Reflex. I’d think it would be more of a Dex vs. Reflex. So what happens, (even in the Dino example of you switching it to target Will instead of Reflex) What types of considerations do you need to make in order to switch around attack types and targeted defenses?

Also- is that a feature on The Monster Builder, being able to switch around the flavor text? (Not subscribed to DDI yet) If so- they should DEFINITELY do that for the character Builder. That would be great. Those printable power cards are already amazing, how cool would it be if you could further customize them?

In one game, I had a couple of the players stumble into a gnoll lair. I hadn’t looked up gnolls before they did so, and so I didn’t realize that gnolls were such high level compared to the characters. They would have gotten their asses kicked. So what did I do? I simply used the stats for goblins, allowing the heroes to mow through them.

Well done NewbieDM, well done.