Disclaimers: No epic characters were killed or hurt in the writing of this blog post. I’m not running an epic tier game currently, and have not run an epic game in 4e. But nevertheless, it’s something I want to talk about and multiple people have said they wanted me to tackle.
I’m not going to talk about practical elements of running a campaign at epic tier — I hear that there’s a person who can offer you that if you need. What I want to talk about is the epic game I want to run, what it would involve and how I think epic fantasy games generally should be approached.
Epic tier = Superhero.
You don’t have to wear a cape to be a superhero. Characters in the epic tier have stepped into the realm of the superhuman in their capabilities, and accomplish legendary deeds with the power they wield in sword or spell. I think that the best superhero stories contain instructive material for an epic fantasy game. I’m a big fan of Grant Morrison’s JLA run, and All-Star Superman, but I also have to recommend Watchmen and the Authority as well. Each of these titles is a fun read, but each also brings with it things we can apply in building a suitably epic epic tier game.
Embrace Power.
Every GM has felt the sting of PCs working in concert to devastate his plans. In 4e in particular, strong characters with strong teamwork can truly crush the obstacles set before them. It can leave GMs feeling powerless. What is it you have to do to bring these players back to earth? How do you prevent these characters from walking around as if they own the place?
What if you let them own the place?
Your characters are powerful. Don’t waste time trying to bring them low. Let them own the powers and abilities they possess. Honestly, the characters might not ever be challenged by a monster by itself.
But consider: if you own the “place”, you own all of it’s problems. That’s where the fun starts.
More Money, More Problems
Heavy is the head that wears the crown! 4e doesn’t yet have rules for running kingdoms or controlling domains, but I suggest you give the PCs ownership of something significant. Even if they don’t rule anything, think of how the world depends on them. Does the world (or the parts they care about) depend on them? Why not? After all, this is the party that stopped the heroslayer hydra from devouring half a city; these are the same adventurers who stopped the Mad God from bringing eternal midnight to the world.
Epic tier also creates epic concerns.
Now the adventurers must deal with more than just what they themselves want. Hundreds or thousands or more actively depend on them for their own survival. Everything a character does or does not do influences the world around them. PCs cannot get away with being in an epic -level game and not being tied and concerned about the world.
Saving the World
When the characters were at heroic tier, they chased down most of their enemies for loot and glory. If the players do not act, they don’t money or experience.
At paragon tier, the characters faced challenging enemies and rivals that push the adventurers to their limits. If the players fail or fail to act, some part of the world suffers, and these enemies get vengeance.
At epic tier, enemies go after the world directly. It is up to the PCs to stop them. If the characters do not act, large portions of the world suffer. The world may end.
I want to emphasize this: Epic enemies make a beeline past the hero to what the heroes care about. Epic monsters go right for the civvies. Why? First, because epic-level heroes are powerful! Take the path of least resistance. Very rarely is a BBEG or epic monster going to throw itself at a group of powerful heroes, because that is a recipe for its own death. More importantly, the heroes aren’t the villains motivation. The world belongs to the heroes, but the villains want what the world offers for themselves. The characters are powerful but they aren’t omniscient. If the players go traipsing through dimensions on one quest, they can come back to find their kingdom ruled by their most hated enemy. They stop the zombie hordes roaming the land, but discover during the battle that a sorceror has created a massive fire in the Feywild.
Here is how I think you really challenge epic heroes. Because of the power of rituals they access and what powers they get, these heroes have incredible awareness, mobility and power. But they can’t be everywhere at once. Rather than setting the PCs on quests, it’s better to create multiple threats to the world the players care about. Ideally, these seemingly disparate threads weave together into the master arc of the tier, but I think for the first few levels epic tier should be absolute chaos. The players can save anyone at any time, but saving everyone at the same time? It’s not impossible, just unreasonable.
Unreasonable threats are perfect for epic. They encourage players to look at their capabilities critically and creatively. It forces players to sacrifice, to choose danger or vulnerability where it would not otherwise exist. Our dastardly villain attacks the a hero with mind-controlled hordes of innocent people. The hero could kill them all easily, but does he want to harm innocents? Doing the right thing is a choice the PC makes the challenge harder than it should be.
At the heart of it, I think epic tier is all about getting players to to defend the world, and making sure they know what truly difficult challenge that is.
Do you run an epic tier game or are you just thinking about it like me? Let me know if you want to see more discussion of this, and also share your thoughts.
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the toughest thing about running epic games for me is not the flavor or storyline. its just way harder to balance encounters
Great article! The way I read the tier of play summaries in the DMG, Epic tier includes not only saving the world, but saving the *worlds* – that is, multi-planar and universe-spanning adventures and stories.
There’s a bit of scope overlap in each tier, especially as you close in on the end of one and start another, but that’s been my mindset for Epic: at least saving the world, if not more or all worlds and planes, especially by tier’s end.
I especially try to include a heavy does of other-planar and other-world lore, events, and tie-ins in epic just to include all that planar content that is in practice more difficult to include in other tiers of play. There’s a ton of it, but the weirdness and dangers of the other planes and alternate worlds fit best to me in Epic play.
One of the things I’ve been working on creating is a quick-and-dirty set of additional rules for 4e that governs precisely the sort of stuff you allude to above: being granted lands that can be developed into kingdoms/monasteries/wizard’s towers and give the characters at late paragon-early epic tier something to actually care about. They might be all but superhuman at that point, but the castle they spent a ton of gold building won’t stand up to the twin ancient red dragons that want it gone.
I agree about taking inspiration from Superhero stories for Epic tier.
When 4E first came out, I saw the three-tier system and instantly liked it. I view the three different tiers as similar to the three different “power levels” you often see in comic book characters.
Heroic tier heroes as similar to the Bad-A** Normals of the DC Universe, such as Batman, the Green Arrow, etc. Just like the comic book characters, the PCs are normal humans (or elves, or dwarves) with few or no supernatural powers. However, they do have skills and abilities far beyond most common people, even at level one.
Paragon tier heroes are more like the characters in the Marvel Universe, such as Spiderman, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, etc. They have reached the level of super-human, with powers and abilities normal people can only dream of. But despite their power they are not invincible, and there are still much bigger fish in the world/universe.
Epic tier heroes, as you said, should take inspiration from the strongest characters in the DC Universe, such as Superman, the Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, etc. They deal with global threats on a regular basis because they are the only ones who are strong enough to do so.
I find that one of the things most interesting about how epic tier developed in my game is how often the “mortal concerns” dropped off- 20 levels was the right amount of time to resolve most PC stories to a satisfactory conclusion (for good or ill.) This maps pretty well to super-hero comparisons: while Superman’s book may involve more time worrying about Lois Lane or his job, in JLA, it’s likely to be a smaller element against the backdrop of a world (or universe, or time) destroying threat, with super high stakes. The characters are still informed by their connections, but ultimately, it’s all about the super-heroics.
And of course, in one of your own examples The Authority, it’s almost nothing to do with how the characters got there, but how they deal with running the whole world.
The part of this that rang most loudly to me was the part about multiple threats that can’t all be stopped simultaneously. Take care of BBEG1, but BBEG2 causes dire consequence A. This type of choice would have to be carefully crafted based on the players involved. I could foresee some groups feeling slighted by not being able to save everyone. I’m not saying this impulse is right or wrong; I’m simply acknowledging that it is there.
Pardon the analogy, but it’s the first one that came to mind…
Spiderman saving Mary Jane and the cable car full of people at the end of the first Spiderman movie. On some mental level, this is what we expect of our superheroes: the seemingly impossible.
I think a DM can mitigate this by having meaningful choices with consequences throughout the campaign. If the DM waits until epic tier to create this sense of not-being-able-to-save-everyone, it may seem like an abrupt paradigm shift that some players may push against. Something to think about…
I love the idea of having several simultaneous threats to the world that the characters have to figure out a way to handle. I also agree that letting and encouraging the players use all of their fun abilities goes a long way towards getting an epic feel – especially things like teleportation, planar travel, and scrying.
The one point I disagree on is that trying to bypass the heroes is somehow tied to being an epic villain. Instead, I think villains in any tier should be trying to bypass the heroes as they work towards their goals. Epic villains might endanger the whole world, but even heroic tier villains shouldn’t wait around for the heroes to stop them.
Erik, you don’t see Batman as epic? Hmm. I see that he is a mere mortal with no enhanced powers, but I wouldn’t put him in the heroic or paragon tier. It’s the level of threats in the universe in which he acts that determines the power of his deeds. My opinion.
I’ve never run an epic tier game, but would love the chance. I agree that to truly challenge the characters at that point you’ll probably need to go for the gut, hit them where it really hurts. I’d love to see some brief scenarios of what sorts of things folks use to hook the players then. I see their homeland as a target for destruction storyline, it seems classic and expected, but what else? What about the more bad boy apathetic characters? What about the loners?
(I just had a daydream thought about Star Wars and motivation. You can motivate Leia by destroying Alderaan. You can motivate Luke by killing Obi Wan…but Han you have to motivate by other means—by putting the other characters at risk, despite his “accepted” goals of money. There could be an epic lesson in there.)
Jeremy Morgan, good insight, it could lead down a path of contention if the players are told they can’t do something or they must choose only one damsel to save. Do remember however, that if they can manage to save them both, it is all that more satisfying (read: fun). Setting them up with the “you can’t do both” platform gives them the opportunity to defy you, and players like nothing more.