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In my mind I think part fo the problem is that 4e seems to draw the mind into that type of thinking. It spends so much of the players handbook covering the powers that the players have, and can gain, that it seems to draw the mind into a mode of what can I do, not what am I. I'm as guilty of falling into that traps as the next person. I found myself thinking what kind of cool powers would Ihave if I went this build route versus that one with my character, instead of what is my character about.
Now, this is not to say that 4e cannot be full of character and full of wonderful roleplaying. One needs look no further than Piratecats current 4e campaign to see the truth to that. But, it does seem to focus on the cool powers quite a bit, and leave injecting the flavor into the campaign to the DM.
Perhaps it is my lack of setting purhcases that are making me see this in this light. I've no interest in the Realms, and perhaps the realse of Eberron will spark my creative juices with the characters. But so far I just end up seeing cool powers with a 4e character, and not a living person that it would be cool to play as well.
Piratecat, got room at your table for a somebody looking to love 4e, but just not connecting yet?
-Ashrum
__________________ ENWorld forums are the points of light amidst darkness.
-blarg
Unless you have already (and therefore are entitled to your informed opinion; please don't get me wrong here), I strongly suggest checking out some more of the modern games out there. If what you posted there had read, 'In short modern D&D needs a Soul once again', well then, sadly I'd pretty much have to agree and that would be that. But I feel compelled to offer the suggestion above, because in my opinion (which, hopefully, is in this instance reasonably informed) a fair number of these modern games you referred to en masse are in fact well and truly 'ensouled'.
Not to mention that a good number of older games also are, of course.
Yeah, but I think you missed this Aus.
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Now all of that being said I think the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction in a corrective move. I see intense interest in what I would call the Soul of Gaming and away from the mechanics of gaming. It is slow and it is just beginning, but I see signs of it in many ways. (In some ways I would even say 4E illustrates the beginnings of this movement, at least as far as D&D is concerned. In some ways 4E is far too cluttered and complicated and power absorbed, but in other ways it is more flexible and fluid, and even, more human in many respects. When I look at the Player's Handbook I see a plethora of mechanics and mechanistic contracts. But when I read the DMG I see the return of the soul in the background.)
But in my opinion the mechanics of gaming are the methods of gaming, not the intention or purpose of gaming. And I think that for a long time there was a sort of assumed and unconscious view permeating much of RPG design that confused method with meaning.
The simple fact that so many now seem interested in exploring other aspects of gaming, and that conversations like this one occur often (as least among what might be called a core RPG audience) is proof to me that the moon is waxing again and that the tide has turned.
And about time if you ask me.
Or maybe I didn't emphasize it enough, or in the right way. Though you're probably right, I was talking about primarily D&D, and one has to define exactly what one means by the time frames being referred to.
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The soul of the game has always been in the hands of the participants.
I agree with that to a large extent EW.
However equally important are the issues and opportunities involved to explore the soul of the game based on design and premise.
And the design premise of the game derives from how the game is initially constructed by the designers, and the milieu premise derives from the DM. Everybody has to do their part to provide opportunities which go beyond just a series of mechanical statistics and probabilities when it comes to role play.
In other words the design must include a soul, the DM must allow that soul to breathe and grow, and the player must bring to life the soul of the character.
But first there must be a design acknowledgment that the character is far more than his bonuses and "build," just as a man is far more than his profession and his body (though I'm not belittling a man's profession and body in any way, I'm just saying those are not the ultimate and final measures of what a man is capable).
As the DM, you get to be anybody you want. As the player, you're this one person for months or years at a time. Of course you're a bit picky about it..
At the beginning of a campaign, how do you know that you will be playing this one person for months or years? Characters can die and new ones can join the party.
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Originally Posted by roguerouge
And, as far as mechanics go, they're a proxy for anxiety about character death. If you're going to invest in creating a detailed character background, forming relationships with all of these PCs, and playing them for months to years, you want to feel like you've done everything possible to make sure that this guy lives. Because it stinks if your guy dies just when the story gets good because you failed him. And it stinks worse if you are invested in the story, only to realize that your character is weak and unable to affect the story through combat or skills at level 10.
Unless a PC enjoys plot protection from death, the odds are its going to happen sooner or later. Adventuring is dangerous work. Paranoia of this kind is senseless. If the DM is a habitual PC killer then he/she will be without players soon enough. Agonizing over every build element in some kind of attempt to make the character "death proof" is kind of silly. Either the DM has it in for your character and will kill him if he/she wants , or the character enjoys some sort of plot protection and won't die anyway.
From the character's point of view it stinks to die at any time.A character dying in the heat of the action doesn't mean the player "failed" him. Bad things happen to good adventurers. .
Lets look at the example Joe G. gave us. Here we have a player who is so obsessed with optimization that he won't create a character and participate in what might be a great game because the options for building the most mathematically advantageous character are not being used by the DM at this time. That mentality makes me wonder if certain players shouldn't just stick to wargames.
Or maybe I didn't emphasize it enough, or in the right way.
Heh, either way, it doesn't matter. I guess the point I was making also got lost amongst all that nitpicking and stuff. Basically yeah, there are a lot of alternatives to (for example) D&D 4th edition. Or 3rd edition. And so on. Bit of an understatement, if anything. There are *tons* of alternatives, and many of them emphasise completely different things. Or, in some cases, it might even be the same things, but with a totally different prioritisation at work.
But, as I certainly deemed possible, seems you were aware of that fact already. So it's all good.
The more your games emphasize solving problems, the more your players will talk about and care about the tools they have for solving problems.
Their own brain isn't worth discussing or planning out in advance. Their character's abilities, on the other hand, are.
There are two possible solutions to this type of play. First, limit or take away tools. Second, run a game where problem solving isn't as big of a deal.
And of course third, just play the game and let the roleplaying come as it may. That's what I tend to favor. I find that a character's personality is mutable for at least the first three or four sessions, so there's no point in planning it ahead more than a tiny bit.
In my mind I think part fo the problem is that 4e seems to draw the mind into that type of thinking.
For me it was 3e. I'm an inveterate, funny accent using role-player and even I got sucked into the character-building mini-game in 3e (PrC's, mulitclassing, feat chains, oh my!).
It really brought out my inner gearhead.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
I just don't get the appeal of all the planning and working and min-maxing without the character to back it up.
Me neither. Intellectually I understand that some people like it, but I don't "get it." I don't get a fix from tweaking a rule-set. Too meta.
But it's not your age or anything, just your play style. Older versions of D&D were useless for gear heads. There was nothing to tweak, so they didn't bother to play and found a hobby that suited them better, like tweaking car engines or building model airplanes. Now that D&D permits them to find some enjoyment in the game they stick around, but that doesn't mean they're playing the game for the same reasons you are.
I think your player did the right thing by dropping out - it's not that you wouldn't have allowed Martial Power eventually, but rather that your game style simply would never have matched his.
By the way, if you want to encourage roleplaying in this new-fangled edition I've found that the amount of RP you get is directly proportional to the amount of choice allowed to PCs in adventure and campaign direction. After all, the rules are "how" you do things; the roleplaying is "why" you do things. If you don't allow players to say "No" to a quest or goal, then you're really not allowing them to roleplay. If you don't allow them to say "Let's go West and save those elves" (and improvise a quest out of that) then you're not allowing them to roleplay. If you say "But guys, I have this recent copy of Dungeon magazine so that's what we're gonna play" you're not allowing them to roleplay. Etc.
Pro-tip for encouraging roleplaying: Grant Quest XP bonuses to players that match up their PC's motivations with a quest. A Cleric of Erathis might place emphasis on some civilization building aspect of the quest, and he only gets his XP award if he accomplishes that goal. This way each player has a clear (and unique) agenda.
__________________ I don't "tell stories" when I play D&D. I adventure. Afterward, when the gold is counted and the bodies piled high, we may tell stories about how it all went down. Or not.
If you build from flavor to mechanics, then you might have a character who sounded cool and you enjoy being but who makes combat a drag for you.
Whereas if you build from mechanics to flavor, you have a character you enjoy fighting with and chances are pretty darn good you'll have a charcater you enjoy roleplaying with.
This is ridiculously good advice. I had to learn it the hard way, and I can assure everyone that it's 113% correct.
__________________ I don't "tell stories" when I play D&D. I adventure. Afterward, when the gold is counted and the bodies piled high, we may tell stories about how it all went down. Or not.
But when you have design paradigms that specifically focus on powers and other concrete mechanical elements of play to the exclusion of role play elements in, of all things, a role play game, then you have a machine without a soul.
And personally I think that a lot of more recent game versions have done this to the detriment of the game itself.
Yeah, like that recent Rules Cyclopedia. Other than the fact that he's apparently "Lawful" my elf doesn't have a single rule representing his personality. It's all spells, longsword, AC, etc., etc. A machine without a soul, as you say.
But he gets a little XP for killing things, and lots of XP for taking their stuff. So I guess his motivation is "Get the money by whatever means necessary." I think I can roleplay that ...
</sarcasm>
All talk of "Soul" aside, I think the main problem is that 3E and 4E have had really engrossing rules. Because certain people were able to spend all day tweaking a character concept in 3.x, they did. That's less of a problem in 4E, but it's still there. In the old school games you simply didn't have that option; once you were 3 minutes into character creation you were done with the rule parts.
Further, the rules in the older editions (prior to kits and Skills & Powers) were so sparse that they simply couldn't encompass anything other than a rough sketch of a PC. You were forced to roleplay your character because the rules provided no guidance at all. It was sink or swim. Now the rules provide a little bit of "fleshing out", and so the natural expectation is that all of the roleplaying aspects will be reduced to rules.
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Originally Posted by ExploderWizard
The modern style of play simply allows the player to contribute less to the overall effectiveness of the character once the options have been selected.
I disagree. I think the player contributes more in the modern style. What I think you're getting at though is that combat is more systematized. This is a Good Thing (TM). In the old days the only way to learn what your combat options were was asking the DM what he'd allow (or reading his 78 page house rules doc) - and no telling if he'd given any thought as to whether his charge mechanic was balanced or not, or whether he'd allow you to swing from chandeliers. Now the PHB provides that information, which makes it more accessible to the new player and better play-tested for all players.
So at the tactical level the player either contributes more or about the same. It was only at the meta-game "What will my DM permit?" level where the old-school player needed to contribute more. Both BECMI and 4E allow players to power attack, swing from chandeliers and try to convince the Orcs to throw down their weapons - and in both editions it's up to the player to decide which tactic to use.
__________________ I don't "tell stories" when I play D&D. I adventure. Afterward, when the gold is counted and the bodies piled high, we may tell stories about how it all went down. Or not.
All talk of "Soul" aside, I think the main problem is that 3E and 4E have had really engrossing rules. Because certain people were able to spend all day tweaking a character concept in 3.x, they did. That's less of a problem in 4E, but it's still there. In the old school games you simply didn't have that option; once you were 3 minutes into character creation you were done with the rule parts.
Further, the rules in the older editions (prior to kits and Skills & Powers) were so sparse that they simply couldn't encompass anything other than a rough sketch of a PC. You were forced to roleplay your character because the rules provided no guidance at all. It was sink or swim. Now the rules provide a little bit of "fleshing out", and so the natural expectation is that all of the roleplaying aspects will be reduced to rules.
Those are interesting points IR.
Especially the parts about engrossment and reducing the ineffable aspects of game and character to rigid rules.
I think there is a sort of subconscious modern trend among designers, or has been, to think everything has to be reduced to mechanical rules.
RP game design is still in many respects in the "Newtonian era."
I disagree. I think the player contributes more in the modern style. What I think you're getting at though is that combat is more systematized. This is a Good Thing (TM). In the old days the only way to learn what your combat options were was asking the DM what he'd allow (or reading his 78 page house rules doc) - and no telling if he'd given any thought as to whether his charge mechanic was balanced or not, or whether he'd allow you to swing from chandeliers. Now the PHB provides that information, which makes it more accessible to the new player and better play-tested for all players.
I don't agree that more systematized always equals a good thing. I don't think cool maneuvers and stunts need to be defined exactly in terms of success chance and effect to make using them cool. Those constraints make combat feel more like a board game and the stunts/maneuvers feel like menu options. As a player it can be fun to just try stuff on the fly without knowing beforehand how likely success will be or what the effects of success or failure are. The whole thing goes hand in hand with combat predictability.
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Originally Posted by Irda Ranger
So at the tactical level the player either contributes more or about the same. It was only at the meta-game "What will my DM permit?" level where the old-school player needed to contribute more. Both BECMI and 4E allow players to power attack, swing from chandeliers and try to convince the Orcs to throw down their weapons - and in both editions it's up to the player to decide which tactic to use.
I will admit that more freestyle, seat of your pants combat requires a skilled DM with good judging skills than a more menu-option formula driven type combat does. In the maneuver examples you gave above which system do you think is more likely to produce a choice based on metagame knowledge of what choice is most optimal per the rules?
In the maneuver examples you gave above which system do you think is more likely to produce a choice based on metagame knowledge of what choice is most optimal per the rules?
Which system is more likely to produce a choice based on metagame knowledge of what choice is most favored by the Dungeon Master?
That's the flip side. Make things too based in DM judgement and you get a game of mother-may-I.
Not that that's always bad. And to a certain degree its inevitable. Even in a hypothetical game where combat was purely mechanistic, the DM would decide who you fight, when, and where.
Which system is more likely to produce a choice based on metagame knowledge of what choice is most favored by the Dungeon Master?
That's the flip side. Make things too based in DM judgement and you get a game of mother-may-I.
Not that that's always bad. And to a certain degree its inevitable. Even in a hypothetical game where combat was purely mechanistic, the DM would decide who you fight, when, and where.
If the DM is running the game as a referee as intended there won't be a favored choice.
Sure, the less defined method of resolution requires a fair and skilled judge. The flipside of the more mechanistic approach is that the design lends itself more easily to the idea of the DM slipping into an adversarial role whereby the DM tries to "defeat" the PCs using the well established rules. Since the DM has more knowledge of the PC capabilities and virtually unlimited resources there is no such thing as a "fair" fight in the first place. This is why the whole "Mother may I" bit falls apart. The actual in game events that lead to this reasoning are the results of players not accepting the DM judgement calls and DMs who fail to listen to the input of players about the basis of such calls.
No matter how detailed and inclusive a rules system, a poor DM will turn it into a bad game. New DMs will make mistakes but pre-writing rules for things that would be better left to judgements doesn't do the new DM any favors in the long run.
I think there is a sort of subconscious modern trend among designers, or has been, to think everything has to be reduced to mechanical rules.
3E was the high water mark there. 4E has backed away from that by (essentially) saying that only adventuring-related skills are reduced to rules. The removal of Craft, Profession and Perform from the Skills list and the separation of Rules & Fluff in the Powers section are examples of moving away from a rule-based approach to "roleplaying stuff."
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Originally Posted by ExploderWizard
I don't think cool maneuvers and stunts need to be defined exactly in terms of success chance and effect to make using them cool.
As long as we focus on your use of the word "cool", I agree. But defining them exactly (and putting them in a rulebook, not a house rules doc) is necessary to make sure they're more widely playtested and stress-tested than I could ever do working on my own time.
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Originally Posted by ExploderWizard
In the maneuver examples you gave above which system do you think is more likely to produce a choice based on metagame knowledge of what choice is most optimal per the rules?
That isn't meta-game knowledge. The PC is a trained warrior (or wizard, whatever). He more or less knows the how "attacking with more power" will effect his odds of success, just a pro baseball player can decide whether to swing for the fences or just try to get a base hit. The PC's not thinking in terms of "-2 Att, +3 Dmg" (those numbers are meta), but the concept of "high-momentum swing" if perfectly knowable within the game.
Leaving the rules unwritten creates confusion and ambiguity that some players will exploit and others will be handicapped by. Putting the rules in writing (whether in a book or house rules doc) equalizes the ability of all players to make tactical decisions. The benefit of written rules is equal access to knowledge. The benefit of "in the book" rules is superior access to playtesting.
__________________ I don't "tell stories" when I play D&D. I adventure. Afterward, when the gold is counted and the bodies piled high, we may tell stories about how it all went down. Or not.
Leaving the rules unwritten creates confusion and ambiguity that some players will exploit and others will be handicapped by. Putting the rules in writing (whether in a book or house rules doc) equalizes the ability of all players to make tactical decisions. The benefit of written rules is equal access to knowledge. The benefit of "in the book" rules is superior access to playtesting.
The handicapped will only be so by choice. Those who cannot have a character react to a situation without a pre-written option or worse, needing those options carefully documented with all odds of success and risks known will certainly be paralyzed by indecision. Such knowledge makes for a smoother more predictable combat. Thats a perfectly valid playstyle. I prefer more chaos and randomness personally.
No matter how detailed and inclusive a rules system, a poor DM will turn it into a bad game. New DMs will make mistakes but pre-writing rules for things that would be better left to judgements doesn't do the new DM any favors in the long run.
I agree with the part in bold. I probably disagree with you on what would be better left to DM judgment.
As for "mother may I" versus adversarial DMing, if the only thing adjudicating whether your actions succeed or fail is the DM's judgment, then you are playing Mother-May-I. Full stop. End of debate. It doesn't matter whether you like the DM's judgment, whether you accept it, or whether the DM listens to your feed back. You. Are. Playing. Mother. May. I.
That doesn't mean you're not having fun!
It also doesn't mean your game is poorly designed!
There are entire games that are essentially Mother May I with context and flavor, and some of them are fine games. But you can't really pretend that rules heavy systems encourage rules metagaming but DM judgment based systems don't equally encourage metagaming about the DM's predilections. We weren't born yesterday.
For me it was 3e. I'm an inveterate, funny accent using role-player and even I got sucked into the character-building mini-game in 3e (PrC's, mulitclassing, feat chains, oh my!).
It really brought out my inner gearhead.
Differant strokes and all. While I liked playing with the prestige classes and all, I used them to build on the charater type I wanted. I wanted to play a deadly two weapon fighter I may go to the dervish prestige class, but then I modified the back story to make it an ancient elvish fighting style from the time when the elves of eberron still favored fighting with steel, and not magic.
On the flip side I keep seeing a 4e character build as very very contraining to my sense of being able to tailer the class and come up with back story. I pretty sure it's just the way my brain works the 3e tickled that creative nerve more than 4e seems to have so far. I think a lot also has to do with the fact that so far I've only been able to play 4e as a one off.
But so far it just seems to feel like a very tight jacket that is limiting my creative freedom with bringing out a character that can do what I want with a crazy backstory that tickles my inner bard. I know this isn't fair, but it is simply the way me brain works every time I start looking at a character for 4e. Abilities, check. Stats, check. Items, check. Now what cool things can I do with my character? My brain just never seems to move beyond that, and get to the cool back story that can tie all of it together.
-Ashrum
__________________ ENWorld forums are the points of light amidst darkness.
-blarg
[quote=Cadfan;4680221]I
As for "mother may I" versus adversarial DMing, if the only thing adjudicating whether your actions succeed or fail is the DM's judgment, then you are playing Mother-May-I. Full stop. End of debate. It doesn't matter whether you like the DM's judgment, whether you accept it, or whether the DM listens to your feed back. You. Are. Playing. Mother. May. I.
[quote]
On the other side we can say that using a complex involved rules set that both the DM and the players use to adjudicate whether your actions succeed or fail means that you you are playing a DM vs players adversarial game. Full stop. End of debate. It doesn't matter if the rule makes much sense, if you are happy with the rule or not. You. Are. Playing. DM. vs. Player.
On the other side we can say that using a complex involved rules set that both the DM and the players use to adjudicate whether your actions succeed or fail means that you you are playing a DM vs players adversarial game. Full stop. End of debate. It doesn't matter if the rule makes much sense, if you are happy with the rule or not. You. Are. Playing. DM. vs. Player.
You also do that in the Mother. May. I.
You just don't have any rules that are at least on your side...
Basically yeah, there are a lot of alternatives to (for example) D&D 4th edition. Or 3rd edition. And so on. Bit of an understatement, if anything. 
There are *tons* of alternatives, and many of them emphasise completely different things. Or, in some cases, it might even be the same things, but with a totally different prioritisation at work.
A good one, but if you are thinking in terms of sides than the dark side has already dominated your destiny.
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