D&D 4E More reflections on 4e and 5e.

Argyle King · Oct 4, 2012

Hussar said:
As far as complexity of options I really can't get behind the argument. My 6 and 8 year old daughters both like Pokemon and the cards. They are both perfectly capable of reading, understanding and creating Pokemon decks out of the hundreds of cards they own. IOW, they can take the time to sit down, read the cards, understand how they synergise and build a deck.

So, I'm really having a difficult time thinking that a college age person cannot figure out the dozen or so ability cards that his character has. Or, to put it another way, it doesn't matter how simple you make the system, for someone to actually refuse to learn the rules, it's not going to change anything.

I cannot XP you or Little Raven, so I'll simply say that I find myself feeling like I'm on a similar wavelength of thought when reading this post.

I can completely respect the idea that what is easy for one person may not be easy for someone else.

I can even respect that someone might not be interested in the rules of a rpg and will instead be interested in the social engagement and/or the mental escape from reality. In my spare time, I play in an online game in which the GM is so good that he can run the system and the players who are not familiar with it can worry about just telling him what they want to do.

Still; even considering all the things I can respect and understand, it seems to me that the length of time that goes into a gaming session and being interested in rpgs would impart some basic understanding of how something works even if it's just through some sort of social osmosis and simply being around what is going on if it is something you have an honest heartfelt interest in it. I do not expect everyone to understand everything completely, but it's hard for me to believe that you wouldn't at least pick up some basic understanding.

Heck, I'll even accept just knowing where to find the information if you don't want to remember it; if you can at least remember where what you need is generally found, I'm ok with that. For example, if you are playing a fighter, it seems reasonable to me that you'd be able to look at the table of contents and find the fighter section in PHB1 when it comes time to level up and choose a new power. It's no coincidence that the character sheet is made out of paper either. It's possible to write on it and take notes in the margins if need be. I'm pretty sure that nobody is talking giving yourself a crash quiz on War and Peace here. Just writing down a page number beside a power name or maybe writing on the bottom of your sheet how much sneak attack damage you do in a special situation because of a particular feat.

Neonchameleon · Oct 4, 2012

Hussar said:
So, I'm really having a difficult time thinking that a college age person cannot figure out the dozen or so ability cards that his character has. Or, to put it another way, it doesn't matter how simple you make the system, for someone to actually refuse to learn the rules, it's not going to change anything.

It's not about figuring it out. It's about caring enough about that specific aspect to have it memorised. The Pokemon comparison would be to someone who's memorised what all their cards do and jut needs to name them.

Manbearcat · Oct 4, 2012

pemerton said:
I love the story. I don't really know how to interpret it. But the colour-to-effect connection is reasonably self-evident, I think - whereas (to hark back to your earlier post) I don't see how "5/2, THAC0 7, 1d8 + 7" is in anway evocative of swordfighting, and "Level: 3, Range: 12", Effect: 20' R burst of fire for d6 per level, save vs spells for half damage" evocative of magic. And even in D&D, grenades and the like have traditionally been statted up like spells, and no one (to my knowledge) has ever complained that this renders them non-mundane. Whereas the attacks of a ghost or wight have traditionally been statted up like your weapon example, and I've never seen anyone complain that this makes them too mundane.

Here is the thought experiment I'm peddling with the above anecdote and my supposition that it may be related to the discussion at hand:

Eccentricities are eccentricities because they are not shared en masse by a cultural body. Over time, ecccentric behavior, sub-culture or ritual may move on the cultural body sliding scale from maligned or oddity to (D&D followed this course) indifferent to accepted and ultimately to advocated for. They then cease to be eccentricities oddities or subversive. They become part of the cultural bloodestream and therefore become mainstream. This process can be arbitrary or it can be organized. There may be absolutely zero functional, pragmatic, sensical worth to some of these eccentricities (when viewed with detached, objective eyes from afar), but nonetheless, they become part and parcel of the relevant experience and therefore become an expectation. Some folks may look at these behaviors through antagonistic eyes wondering how we have run so afoul of common virtue. Others may look at them with bemused detachment and wonder how it can be that something so arbitrary with no tangible, practical worth is given such status and relevance. Others still may advocate intensely for them, asserting that they have "net worth" and may attempt to articulate that "net worth" (or not) and become indignant to the surmise that they are arbitrary and given potency only by way of the natural progression of social ritual/cultural meme (personalizing this surmise into saying something superficial/shallow about themselves).

I wonder what may have happened with D&D sub-culture if every basic set came with those dice that I outlined above (red for fire, blue for frost, white for lightning, black for necro, yellow for radiant, tranlucent/sparkly for divinations, etc, etc) and perhaps, extending it further, if there were specifically designed dice that had some aesthetic to match martial attacks/damage. I wonder if we could then replace our current discussion about yearning for (or antagonistic toward or indifferent to...depending on your position) dispirate resolution mechanics with regards to magic vs mundane. It appears that, like my friend with his dice, the aesthetic (which I find arbitrary and perhaps needlessly cumbersome) of different resolution mechanics may be part of the "net experience" of resolving an action in the fiction...as if the ritual itself is some conduit for immersion for some folks...or something? Whereas I contend that the only relevance of the dispirate nature of magic vs the mundane is in the rendered fiction. Whereas I (and others) deem the only relevance of resolution mechanics being that they are functional, elegant and they then, in the interests of the fiction, get out of the way of creativity. Much as driving an hour and a half to get the right dice was odd, arbitrary (and needlessly burdensome) to me, different resolution mechanics strikes me the same. Nonetheless, it seems that some will advocate for them intensely as part of the sum total "net experience." It has meaning to them. It is not shallow to them at all. It is mandatory/necessary. Necessary enough that they will not play without them (or drive an hour and a half to get them).

Good luck to Mearls and company bridging that gap (between the advocates, those indiffeent to, and those antagonistic toward).

slobo777 · Oct 4, 2012

Manbearcat said:
Whereas I (and others) deem the only relevance of resolution mechanics being that they are functional, elegant and they then, in the interests of the fiction, get out of the way of creativity.

Something to add here:

A game based purely on well-balanced and simple resolution mechanics is ultimately as boring as snakes and ladders (where action resolution is just finding out what the random numbers are tonight). There needs to be something (IMO a lot) else to turn it into an evening's entertainment.

In many games the something else is the fiction and roleplay. When the fiction interacts strongly with the mechanics - driving and over-riding them - then all bets on mechanical predictability are off. Although I don't always like the style of play that emerges, I can appreciate it is additive to the game.

In 4E - and to a significant extent 3E - the something else can be the complexity of battleboard positioning and trades you can make between resource use, action economy etc (and the roleplay of course if you have time after all that

). Like "go", even a highly simplified battleboard opens up the game into millions of possible outcomes where skill and intuition become part of the game, and analysis is hard.

I also think this is where 3E's design goal of "system mastery" is coming from. The designers realised there had to be something that made 3E a more involved game. They tried to add a element of skill/puzzle solving with system mastery.

So here's the contentious bit: IMO, having magic/spells being a bit "out there" and maybe difficult to adjudicate and balance in some versions of the game is an obfuscation to analysis, and thus avoids the boredom of predictability. Bizarrely, by getting in the way of clean resolution systems, it can actually improve the feel of the game.

I actually prefer unified and balanced mechanics, and don't really want special magic subsystems. But also I don't want the central game system becoming so linear that it is snakes and ladders (down the snake = lose some hit points, up the ladder = enemy loses some hit points). Despite all the options, at times the D&D combat roll game (as opposed to its role-playing/narrative side) gets perilously close to this in my book.

You can add that to the list of impossible goals for Mearls and co . . . simple clean mechanics which at the same time aren't boring or predictable to resolve.

Manbearcat · Oct 4, 2012

@slobo777

Good, provocative post and I do agree with the premise that granularity and nuance in mechanical resolution can add to game feel (when used selectively and with precision). It is when it is gratuitous and arbitrary is where I have issues. The problem with that is both of those things are going to be preference-driven as one person's "additive nuance" may be another person's "arbitrary, gratuitous" and loss of it would be "addition by subtraction."

pemerton · Oct 5, 2012

slobo777 said:
A game based purely on well-balanced and simple resolution mechanics is ultimately as boring as snakes and ladders (where action resolution is just finding out what the random numbers are tonight). There needs to be something (IMO a lot) else to turn it into an evening's entertainment.

In many games the something else is the fiction and roleplay. When the fiction interacts strongly with the mechanics - driving and over-riding them - then all bets on mechanical predictability are off.

<snip>

You can add that to the list of impossible goals for Mearls and co . . . simple clean mechanics which at the same time aren't boring or predictable to resolve.

I think there is an option that you're not canvassing (but I may have misunderstood you or not read closely enough).

Namely, there can be unpredictability with clear and simple rules provided that the players are able to push the fiction in unexpected directions. I particularly want to insist that this doesn't require that the fiction be able to override the mechanics. It just requires that the players be able to use the mechanics to drive the fiction (ie no GM fudging "in the interest of the story" to block the players from doing this).

Libramarian · Oct 5, 2012

Iosue said:
Consider the AD&D sleep spell. Mechanically, it's only difference from a regular to-hit roll is that the DM is rolling it instead of the player. (In some early games, even this is not different, as DMs rolled all dice.) The mechanic didn't create the feel of magic -- the players and DMs created that by describing the narrative. How they imagined it was different.

This part of your post is very wrong. The mechanics of the AD&D Sleep spell are totally different from a weapon attack, and I do think this is important to why they feel so different in play. First of all, Sleep doesn't have a saving throw; it has a hit dice limit. Secondly, it doesn't do attritive damage. It knocks enemies out, which allows you to easily slay them. It has a very dramatic effect. It absolutely would feel less magical and more same-y if the player rolled to-hit and the spell did HP damage.

It's both unified mechanics and the reliance on the battledgrid and minis that results in a less vivid imaginary scene. It's because people don't imagine things unless they need to. Trying to convince people to imagine/narrate things vividly when it's not necessitated by the mechanics in any way and there's no in-game payoff is just lame, passive-aggressive game design, IMO.

Libramarian · Oct 5, 2012

The Little Raven said:
I find the argument that "RTFM" or its RPG cousin "Read Your Frakking Character Sheet" is too high a barrier to entry to D&D to be silly beyond belief. This argument is saying that "have a pulse" should be the minimum barrier to entry, which I find an insultingly low standard for a game that is supposed to be about intellect and imagination.

It's NOT about intelligence OR laziness. People have less tolerance for reading manuals nowadays not because we're getting dumber or lazier, but because we have so many other entertainment options that don't require that initial investment of effort. It's not that learning to play D&D is that hard, it's the opportunity cost of spending time doing that instead of doing something else.

Are you aware that most modern videogames don't require the player to read the manual at all? You just turn it on and you learn how to play as you go. This is what D&D has to compete with. Oddly D&D has been going in the wrong direction in this regard, literally since OD&D.

Magil · Oct 5, 2012

Libramarian said:
It's NOT about intelligence OR laziness. People have less tolerance for reading manuals nowadays not because we're getting dumber or lazier, but because we have so many other entertainment options that don't require that initial investment of effort. It's not that learning to play D&D is that hard, it's the opportunity cost of spending time doing that instead of doing something else.

Are you aware that most modern videogames don't require the player to read the manual at all? You just turn it on and you learn how to play as you go. This is what D&D has to compete with. Oddly D&D has been going in the wrong direction in this regard, literally since OD&D.

There's never going to be a point where DnD is as easy to jump into as a video game. A tabletop game, innately, requires some investment on the part of the player to learn the rules. You can show them the rules while playing the game to an extent, but that's on the DM, and they will still need to read their character sheet at some point.

The alternative is that DnD becomes as dumbed-down as today's video games with point and click tutorials. Used to be that video games were at least somewhat clever with teaching you how to play, rather than flashing in big letters FOLLOW THIS GUY or USE THE X BUTTON HERE... of course, there were also a lot of games that required you to read the instruction manual to learn them in the past, and those were not particularly clever.

I still don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that approach, though I do feel that video games have it a lot easier than tabletop games in teaching a player the game while playing it. And again I'm not saying it can't be done in a tabletop RPG, but it requires a capable and mindful DM and preferably a few experienced players as well.

And finally, frankly I don't think there's any point to trying to compete for the lowest common denominator in video games. If we accept that DnD will never be as easy to get into as a video game, heck, you can play most video games by yourself, DnD requires you to find some other people willing... and the video games track all the numbers for you, while in DnD you need to track them yourself (there will always be some numbers to track, regardless of complexity). DnD does need to appeal to the same market that plays video games, for sure. I should know, I'm part of that market. But they don't need to try and match video games in terms of being easy to pick up, either.

It should be as easy as is possible to pick up and play, yes. But not to the extent of cutting out a lot of good stuff that makes the system deep and engaging to those who care about mechanical complexity. Heck, aren't DnD 4E and Pathfinder the leaders of the tabletop RPG market right now? Both are fairly rules-heavy RPGs. That's the market WotC needs to go for, because they're not going to get the market that needs giant letters on the screen to tell them where to go.

Tony Vargas · Oct 5, 2012

Libramarian said:
This part of your post is very wrong. The mechanics of the AD&D Sleep spell are totally different from a weapon attack, and I do think this is important to why they feel so different in play. First of all, Sleep doesn't have a saving throw; it has a hit dice limit. Secondly, it doesn't do attritive damage. It knocks enemies out, which allows you to easily slay them. It has a very dramatic effect. It absolutely would feel less magical and more same-y if the player rolled to-hit and the spell did HP damage.

[quoite]It's both unified mechanics and the reliance on the battledgrid and minis that results in a less vivid imaginary scene. It's because people don't imagine things unless they need to.

I don't think either of those statements are true. People /do/ imagine things they have no need to imagine, and quite often. 'Daydreaming,' notoriously, for instance. And, having a model to illustrate layout can make visualizing a scene easier. That's why directors use a storyboard instead of just sitting around imagining shots.

Different people think differently, though. Some are more visual, others more verbal, for instance. Things like minis are 'visual aids' and help people who think visually. If you're not one of those people (only something like 65% of people are), you might not get the full benefit from using them. That doesn't mean they kill imagination.

Trying to convince people to imagine/narrate things vividly when it's not necessitated by the mechanics in any way and there's no in-game payoff is just lame, passive-aggressive game design, IMO.

Vivid narration/visualization is one way to engage with an RPG. But it's not the only way. An aspect of those varied play-styles 5e is supposedly trying to accommodate. Designing the game to bludgeon everyone into playing in that one particular way isn't going to accomplish that. And, really, there's no need. Those who want to narrate can narrate, whether the mechanics over-reward them for it or not.