[GM/Rules] Slaughter Margin >> How Useful Is This As a Metric?

One of the more challenging aspects of good RPG design, especially one with a clear advancement/experience system for overcoming obstacles and encounters, is making sure those obstacles are fair, balanced and just challenging enough to test the characters without being a cakewalk, or being far, far too difficult.

Dungeons & Dragons does this by having cearly defined N/PC levels and Challenge Ratings (CR) or Encounter Levels (EL) for monsters or groups of monsters the players may face. Apparently the new 4E system will simply use XP values as the building blocks. Other systems introduce myriad variations on the theme, if they have any sort of metric at all.

In Warhammer, the metric for creature balance is the Slaughter Margin. The Slaughter Margin was introduced in the Old World Bestiary (p. 76) and compares how easily a single human soldier with good equipment, who is halfway through the soldier career (in terms of advances) would fare in combat against one single creature of that type. It rates the soldier's chances in the same way as skill tests: Very Easy, Easy, Routine, Average, Challenging, Hard, Very Hard and Impossible.

I have several issues with the Slaughter Margin as a metric. First, it assumes one-on-one confrontations. I don't know about your adventures, but 1-v-1 encounters probably account for less than 5% of what happens during combat in my adventures. Secondly, it's virtually impossible to make a comparison for a career that's not along a martial track.

So Joe Schmo, the average human soldier, would find a single chaos warrior Challenging to battle. What does that really mean? If my group is comprised of a human Barber-Surgeon, a human Bonepicker and a human Tradesman all about halfway through their starting careers -- how do I determine the challenge then?

Have you used the Slaughter Margin when developing encounters? Or do you just eyeball the creatures' statistics and use your instincts to see if it's a good challenge for your players? Given the simple stat blocks and (mostly clear) definitions for talents and creature abilities, it seems fairly easy to assess a creature entry and gauge if it would challenge your party or rip them to shreds.

Further, does there even need to be a metric for evaluating creature difficulty/lethality? Or do you think the rules provide enough information for GMs to adequately do that on their own?

It is really rubbish, most useless bit of information in the book, the only redeeming feature of the whole thing is it showed that you can wear Plate over Leather without the chain if you really want too.

That said I really do not think with characters in WFRP being as diverse as they are, that there is any way to codify how hard a combat will be. Certainly when creating creatures, I spend more time worrying about what the Slaughter Margin should be than any other part of it, as its nigh on imposable to really get it right.

(It is not like D&D does a very good job at it anyway, Darkmantles are CR 1, see how long a first level party lasts against one!)

jadrax wrote:the only redeeming feature of the whole thing is it showed that you can wear Plate over Leather without the chain if you really want too.

If you're referring to Johann Schmidt's stat block (on p. 77) -- the human soldier the Slaughter Margin is based on -- his armor is Medium (Helmet, Full Leather, Mail Shirt) not Heavy/Plate... His Body Armor Rating is only 3... Unless you're referring to the Helmet, which I suppose could be over the Leather Skullcap... Anyhoo.

Indeed he wears a Plate helmet over a leather skullcap. ;o)

It is a good "thump check rule" on number of creature to throw at players, 5 advances = Routine, which means 4 players should be able to handle a single Challenging creature or 7 easy and 1 hard.

What it means is that Fitz is going to be killed going against a choas warrior UNLESS he or someone else takes action to prevent it, out numbering, high ground, pickets, range weapons, gernades, picking a location for a fight, etc.

It is also helpful in rewarding fate points, if a player never overcomes a challenge, why reward him?

ynnen wrote:One of the more challenging aspects of good RPG design, especially one with a clear advancement/experience system for overcoming obstacles and encounters, is making sure those obstacles are fair, balanced and just challenging enough to test the characters without being a cakewalk, or being far, far too difficult.

I don't really agree with your premise. I don't see WFRP as a clear progression past obstacles and encounters that need to be balanced. I think it usually works out a lot messier than that, which suits the setting. I don't see that the exp system necessarily encourages that sort of thing, either.

I have no problem throwing PCs against encounters that are much too easy, or much too difficult. If they're too easy then it's a challenge, perhaps, for the PCs not to look like cruel bullies. They could need to negotiate rather than fight, or show they mean no harm, before their foe sensibly flees. If it's too difficult then that's a harder lesson the PCs need to learn. And one of the funner ones.

If it is a well balanced encounter with a fair fight, then that's a good thing too. But I don't see how the GM is obliged to supply such a thing every time. In fact, I think the game would lose something if the PCs went into encounters expecting them to be fair fights.

monkeylite wrote:I don't really agree with your premise. I don't see WFRP as a clear progression past obstacles and encounters that need to be balanced. I think it usually works out a lot messier than that, which suits the setting. . . <snip> . . . I have no problem throwing PCs against encounters that are much too easy, or much too difficult.

My premise wasn't specifically pointing to WFRP as the example to follow. I was actually leaning a bit more toward showing another aspect where D&D and WFRP differ greatly.

While WFRP does have a very clear progression line for experience (career paths and prerequisites), it provides a much fuzzier overview of presenting challenges to a party and rewarding them for overcoming challenges, via the open-to-interpretation XP reward system. And that's fine.

I 100% agree that having only "fair fights" would grow tedious. Having things go especially easy can be a lot of fun (and in Warhammer, can often leave a group wondering what they missed, or if it's the calm before the storm and foment all sorts of paranoia) and you sometimes need to put them in fear for their lives -- or very souls -- with some fiendishly difficult encounters. Unlike a Dungeon Crawl mindset, I think Warhammer groups quickly learn that not all battles are fought to completion, and that at times a tactical retreat is the best (and only survivable) option.

However, I do see value in creating a baseline for challenge difficulty. If you don't know what makes a fair fight, then it can me much more difficult to see what would be overwhelming -- until perhaps you're right in the thick of it, and suddenly adding that third chaos warrior is looking like a bad idea... While GMs everywhere freewheel and adjudicate results on the fly, few things can sour a session more quickly than a contrived Deus Ex Machina to pull their fat out of the fire for a poorly planned encounter, or simply overrunning them and ending with a TPK for something ill-conceived.

I think that the Warhammer stats are simple enough that you can pretty much get an idea by looking at the creature's WS, SB, TB, and wounds and gauge how difficult it will be for your players.

lukelightning wrote:I think that the Warhammer stats are simple enough that you can pretty much get an idea by looking at the creature's WS, SB, TB, and wounds and gauge how difficult it will be for your players.

Plus, it only takes one encounter with a Troll to get them out of the D&D mindset.

In concept, WFRP is not different from D&D, it is the excution. WFRP takes a few monsters and keeps the players progression flat vs the monster, an orc is going to give you a fight for longer than in D&D. In D&D, once you move a level or two beyond the HD of a monster in D&D, you have to find a new foe. In WFRP, it may because easier to slaughter them but they remain a risk.

Hand of Evil wrote:

lukelightning wrote:Plus, it only takes one encounter with a Troll to get them out of the D&D mindset.

This. And the fact that there is no attempt to make all professions equal when it comes to combat. Sigmund the Scribe can't compete with Otto the Outlaw in combat. But when it comes to adventuring in general, he can really shine... he might be the only one in the party who can actually read! (I've run adventures that start off with the typical "you find a note..." but none of the PCs was literate! They had to find someone to read their note, and the whole adventure got into a very amusing and fun sidetrack. The only scribe they found wanted to charge them, and the priest of Sigmar they found wouldn't be bothered to read it. They finally found a poor student and intimidated him into reading it for them).

lukelightning wrote:

Hand of Evil wrote:

lukelightning wrote:Plus, it only takes one encounter with a Troll to get them out of the D&D mindset.

This. And the fact that there is no attempt to make all professions equal when it comes to combat. Sigmund the Scribe can't compete with Otto the Outlaw in combat. But when it comes to adventuring in general, he can really shine... he might be the only one in the party who can actually read! (I've run adventures that start off with the typical "you find a note..." but none of the PCs was literate! They had to find someone to read their note, and the whole adventure got into a very amusing and fun sidetrack. The only scribe they found wanted to charge them, and the priest of Sigmar they found wouldn't be bothered to read it. They finally found a poor student and intimidated him into reading it for them).

Yep, a good paper man (forger) can go a long way in WFRP

Personally, I plan out my encounters not by the SM, but by how many and what type of creatures fit the story.

If the story calls for a Daemon or a Dragon, there will be one, whatever their career path or level. If they're third career or more and they make a judgement call that they can handle it and they can't, then they're going to be short some Fate Points. If they think like true denizens of the WFRP World, then they'll exercise any other option they can find (and I always provide at least a couple) before taking it on personally.

If they're first career characters, you can bet they'll be trying to find some other way to deal with the beasty or avoid it altogether with no thought of tackling the creature by hand. And if they actually see it, you can be sure it's brown trouser time and 'out run your mates,' not 'The GM wouldn't give us an unbalanced encounter, so maybe we can take it.'

In D&D the most irritating breach of verisimilitude for me was the fact that no matter where you went at first level, you only ever encountered goblins, kobolds and the odd orc, but nothing that would kill you dead in an instant. And then, when you had reached the level where these sorts of things weren't challenging any more, they just disappeared from the face of the world (and good thing too, because fighting them in endless hordes as they shot you with dozens of arrows and struck you with dozens of sword blows to no good effect would be really boring).

Also, until you were at a level to handle it, dragons just didn't attack towns, giants never sacked a village, black knights never invaded a kingdom, nothing ever happened until you were ready to deal with it. I could almost see all these massively powerful creatures waiting in the wings going 'I'm hungry. Are they 10th level yet?'

In WFRP, a goblin always has the potential to kill you. You could be a Knights Panther and a bad set of circumstances could give him just the edge, however small the chance, of killing you in a single blow, no matter what his SM says. And goblins in WFRP are nasty, cunning and more likely to shoot you from a distance and always use numbers to their advantage (numbers that WILL kill you quickly, unlike D&D).

In the Old World, something terrible is always right around the corner, whether you're prepared for it or not and I like to keep my players on their toes with that. In D&D, they'll always think they have the option to fight. In WFRP, they'll learn to look before they leap into combat, no matter how easy the SM says it is, because they know a cunningly laid trap or lucky swipe can be their undoing...

Luther wrote: I could almost see all these massively powerful creatures waiting in the wings going 'I'm hungry. Are they 10th level yet?'

LOL

Very True, that one (and the rest of your post, for that matter).

Luther wrote: I could almost see all these massively powerful creatures waiting in the wings going 'I'm hungry. Are they 10th level yet?'

Great line - which is doubly funny because it's true.

Luther wrote:In D&D the most irritating breach of verisimilitude for me was the fact that no matter where you went at first level, you only ever encountered goblins, kobolds and the odd orc, but nothing that would kill you dead in an instant.

Depends on the DM. I remember our party of brave little hero-wannabes, marching off to the ruined castle despite being warned by a couple people "you don't want to go there, there's a DRAGON in that castle!" As we got closer the DM kindly had us come across an experienced ranger NPC who warned us again in no uncertain terms that it would be our deaths if we went there.

We were supposed to go explore a burnt-okut ghost town, the castle was there for when we were more powerful.

Much the same discussion here: http://forum.blpublishing.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3283

---

While I agree Slaughter Margin feels like an imported concept (because in WFRP, no fight is ever supposed to be a convenient win - that's the D&D mindset), I did make a stab at a much more useful second Slaughter Margin value to complement the first one.

The existing Slaughter Margin is possibly useful for a small group of newly rolled characters (i.e. a group that collectively can match Johann the Soldier's capacities), but what about any group with some kind of experience (either the characters' or their players')?

It's here: http://forum.blackindustries.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10278

Slaughter margin can perhaps be useful for a beginner GM, with no or very little experience of the system.

After a few sessions the GM should get the hang of how dangerous different opponents are.

In general its just a waste of space, and I hope they did not put a lot of effort in 'calculating' it.

I feel that any system attempting to calculate the risk and power of a creature is doomed to failure simply because combat does not take place in a controlled environment; any such system cannot include circumstances which are beyond its scope, unless the writer wishes to put an unrealistic amount of effort into it. The Challenge Rating system utilized by third edition D&D is a perfect example of this, an encounter involving an Orc necromancer who has raised several skeletons and zombies to fight the party will have a specific CR if you use the Dungeon Master's Guide to calculate it. However, if the party contains a Ranger who has chose Orc as his Favored Enemy and/or a Cleric who can Turn Undead, the CR of that encounter is not even remotely accurate.

I think the approach BI/GR took works well, especially with Warhammer. Instead of asking themselves how dangerous each creature would be to a party of adventurers, they asked themselves how dangerous each would be to the average soldier. Granted, a case could certainly made for making the system slightly more complex by switching focus from a single soldier to a soldier, noble, rat catcher, and student (or some such setup) to represent a likely group of Player Characters, and possibly make a second Slaughter Margin to represent those character in their late second or early third careers, but to be honest I think the statistics speak for themselves. It seems to me that WFRP is a simple enough game that even a novice GM could look at a giant or vampire and realize his group of starting career PCs can't handle it.

Sythorn wrote:However, if the party contains a Ranger who has chose Orc as his Favored Enemy and/or a Cleric who can Turn Undead, the CR of that encounter is not even remotely accurate.

I don't see the D&D CR system as only a gauge on combat danger.

It is the CR that ultimately determines the XP award, and in this case I believe the Ranger and Cleric should be rewarded with an easier encounter.

The DM is expected to throw a wide variety of enemies at his party, so that the next time, the Ranger might face monsters who aren't suspectible to either his Favored Enemy bonus nor his (presumably) archer skills.

If you look at the CR apart from its connection to the XP reward, however, then I agree, it's not as foolproof as advertised.

Slaughter margin was a useful metric for my rather controversial Random treasure tables. As a combat guide, i would say it is only superficially useful. Then again, WFRP was never about the fairness, was it?

One Horse Town wrote:Slaughter margin was a useful metric for my rather controversial Random treasure tables. As a combat guide, i would say it is only superficially useful. Then again, WFRP was never about the fairness, was it?

Actually I thought linking them to Slaughter Margin rather than the probable wealth of the creature you had slaughtered was the big flaw within it, a Disembodied eathreal head (Slaughter Margin, Imposable) should not have more gear than a Snotling Shaman (Slaughter Margin, Easy)

Therefore I tend to ignore the column headers and replace them with a vague wealth rating.

jadrax wrote:

One Horse Town wrote:Slaughter margin was a useful metric for my rather controversial Random treasure tables. As a combat guide, i would say it is only superficially useful. Then again, WFRP was never about the fairness, was it?

Actually I thought linking them to Slaughter Margin rather than the probable wealth of the creature you had slaughtered was the big flaw within it, a Disembodied eathreal head (Slaughter Margin, Imposable) should not have more gear than a Snotling Shaman (Slaughter Margin, Easy)

Therefore I tend to ignore the column headers and replace them with a vague wealth rating.

Sure, common sense applies.

Well, to state the obvious, the CR rule (as well as many other D&D rules) is intended to replace common sense.

This makes it very difficult to properly tear apart any WFRP rule with your D&D rules lawyer hat on - anytime you find an inconsistency, the designer is saved by the "filter any rule through common sense" understanding rather than the (more satisfying) response "oh, I see. I'm so sorry. That's my fault - I will of course create a new edition of that particular rule immediately. We can't have DMs having to use their actual minds now, can we?".

[...Apply your favourite selection of smileys here...]

CapnZapp wrote:Well, to state the obvious, the CR rule (as well as many other D&D rules) is intended to replace common sense.

This makes it very difficult to properly tear apart any WFRP rule with your D&D rules lawyer hat on - anytime you find an inconsistency, the designer is saved by the "filter any rule through common sense" understanding rather than the (more satisfying) response "oh, I see. I'm so sorry. That's my fault - I will of course create a new edition of that particular rule immediately. We can't have DMs having to use their actual minds now, can we?".

[...Apply your favourite selection of smileys here...]

Could you clarify that capn? I'm not sure what you're trying to say there.

CapnZapp wrote:Well, to state the obvious, the CR rule (as well as many other D&D rules) is intended to replace common sense.

This makes it very difficult to properly tear apart any WFRP rule with your D&D rules lawyer hat on - anytime you find an inconsistency...

As a D&D rules lawyer who sadly has much of the 3.5 SRD memorized and wrote modules and supplements for perhaps one of the most niche lines within 3.5 (the Dungeon Crawl Classics line for Goodman Games) I can say that GMing Warhammer is a zillion -- nay, two zillion -- times easier. It is easier on both the GM and the player.

However, I have a personal aversion to simply dodging design responsibilities by leaving too much up to GM fiat by saying "well, just use common sense." Even more grating are design decisions that just tell the reader (more or less) When In Doubt, Apply Rule Zero...

For those who aren't familiar with Rule Zero, it's an oft-debated RPG design premise... "All of the other rules are really just guidelines, and the judge(s) of the game have the final say. " ... in other words, Rule Zero's premise is "The GM Is Always Right."