Convincing 4th Edition players to consider 5th Edition

[Tony Vargas]

3.x monsters are built the same as 3.x PCs, sort of. Each monster type is a sort of "class," with a HD type, a BAB progression, saves and so forth.

Monsters could also have PC classes, and monsters that could cast spells cast the same spells as PCs. I don't think that exactly maintained a 'curtain' between the players and the mechanics. Rather, the mechanics were right there, to be understood and exploited. The best way to exploit the mechanics, though, defined the way things work in the game. That gives the game a 'right' (or best) way to be played and the world a definite feel.

4e drew the curtain back, and drew attention to the hardest part of monster design: challenging the players and PCs. ... Hence for example the shift from CR, which is just sort of thrown onto a monster after the fact, to monster level, which is one of a 4e monster's most basic stats that other stats are based on.

I can see how that might 'break immersion' - for the DM, since he's the only one dealing with monster design. IMPX, once I GM a game, that sort of immersion in that game is dead for me, because I'll reverse-engineer and tinker with the rules and generally run the darn game, which definitely means looking behind the curtain no matter how thick or stapled to the floor it may be, or how ugly and inefficient the machinery behind it. So, as a DM, I'll take a gauzy curtain with elegant, smooth-functioning, easy-to-maintain machinery behind it, thank you.

But as a player, monsters working by their own formulae, which are different from your own, means each monster gets to be different, and each monster power doesn't work exactly like some spell you have. That shouldn't hurt 'immersion' at all.


Actually, now that I think of it, the best 'immersive' experiences I've had with D&D have been early in a give ed, when I haven't digested everything yet and am just playing. Not knowing all the rules about the monsters, the other PCs, and so forth does give you that sense of being in a mysterious or fantastic world.

However, that doesn't map precisely to having radically different rules for everything. Just to being able to concentrate on the rules you need to play your character to the exclusion of the details of everyone else's & the DM's. In classic D&D, if you only ever played one class, you could retain that blissful ignorance, for a while, until it just became obvious what other classes could do. Same with 3.x, though, once you played /any/ caster, you were unlikely to make it through the task of understanding and picking your spells without noticing what a lot of other casters could do (just because of how the spells were organized, all mixed together and shared rather than class-by-class as in AD&D). In 4e, you could focus on your character, and not even have to really learn all the powers of your class - just look over the choices at a given level once, pick one, and really learn how to use that power - not being able to duplicate (and thus spam) more potent encounters and dailies also helped with that, a bit. For me, that meant the 'immersive' experience lasted through several characters in 4e, vs just one (though it was a lot of fun) in 3.0.

 

[Herschel]

But the point is having that choice taken away, to limit what you can do, is for many of us part of the fun. Now one can choose to paint this very negatively (they dont like having options for example) but for me it creates more excitement when my charater is more limited in what he can do in certain situations. I can see how you might find it more enjoyable to take the other approach. All I am saying is there are a lot of people who honestly don't find that kind of design fun.

D&DN is trying to bridge the gap when they say 'Don't use Themes and Backgrounds for a more old school feel.' The problem is the Themes and Backgrounds shown so far aren't gaining enough traction with people who want more options.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

[MENTION=710]Mustrum_Ridcully[/MENTION] and [MENTION=40398]Tequila Sunrise[/MENTION] ... Thanks for the explanation, I guess I wasn't groking exactly what was being talked about. Your explanations helped with that and I can totally see the point now... and even see where that could cause dissention between the camps.

Glad I could help.

Barbarians don't have d12 HD because they're dense; neither to dragons. But they do have it for a reason. Perhaps because of physical superiority, or perhaps because of luck/skill/will/etc.; this goes to the vagueness of hit poitns. But there is a reason, in both cases. The reason is not "because that's balanced" or because it fills a mechanical niche, but something relating to the in-game reality.

Thank you for demonstrating my point. Rationalization at work!

I used to think of monsters as being just challenges to the PCs, but now I use them as characters as part of a story, in part because of the 3.5 monster/character design rules. I can't imagine going back/having that taken away.

I used to think of monsters as being just part of a story, but then I realized that this is a false dilemma; monsters are best as both well-designed stat blocks and as living parts of my game world. I can't imagine going to back to just one or the other.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

@Mustrum_Ridcully and @Tequila Sunrise ... Thanks for the explanation, I guess I wasn't groking exactly what was being talked about. Your explanations helped with that and I can totally see the point now... and even see where that could cause dissention between the camps.

Though I believe it may be possible to bring both sides closer together, as mentioned in my post.

With bounded accuracy, a monster designer no longer has to "make up" some of those 3.x values like natural armor. The system can focus on creating assumptions that seem sensible, for example:
A Full Plate is a bit weaker than a Dragon's Hide (that's why we have a Dragonscale Plate be more powerful than a Full Plate). By ensuring that the expected values fall within the range allowed by the accuracy, you can make things a bit more stable balance-wise.

From the other side, you can also make certain other assumptions: "AC this high coupled with this many hit points and an attack witht his average damage makes this a Level X" monster.

A lot of this may noteven be spelled out in the core, but rules module could focus on both. Someone that prefers the 4E approach of "plug in the level to get all base statistics" may have something more constrained then the guy using the 3E approach of modeling. The 3E compatibiltiy module user would probably be able to stat something up like "Commoner in Plate Armor" where hit points, AC and damage values will not fall perfectly into a level scheme (depending on party composition and available spells and abilities, a 3 hit point Commoner with AC 25 may be really hard to beat or drop on the first round). That's okay for the purposes of that modue, but would probably bother someone that wants something like the 4E rules. But one may even be able to combine both rules module and while the "3E" module would allow such extreme combinations, use the "4E" module to generally only design NPCs and monsters that fit in the "neater" range of values for their level.

The D&D community is heterogeneous and has different preferences and demands for the system - and these interests sometimes outright diverge. So I think it is a good idea to start D&D Next on a common, sometimes maybe simplistic appearing level, and then add modules that can explore the divergences (and maybe sometimes find new ways to combine them).

I believe this common ground doesn't require the 4E monster roles and the "plug in level for stats" appraoch, but it will probably require some balance at its core against which power can later be measured for future modules, and also intentionally broken.
The monsters probably are best kept self-contained, e.g. their stat block contains all the information you need to play them in game. Later on, rules modules can break this all apart or add detail where needed.

Of course, the challenge is to still have a "core" that can stand on its own and is not immediately off-putting.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Actually, now that I think of it, the best 'immersive' experiences I've had with D&D have been early in a give ed, when I haven't digested everything yet and am just playing. Not knowing all the rules about the monsters, the other PCs, and so forth does give you that sense of being in a mysterious or fantastic world.

I think a lot of gamers have this experience, myself included, and I think it's one of the basic facts of life that makes the edition treadmill keep going and going.

 

[Cadfan]

That isn't fun for you. For some people it actually makes playing those characters more fun. I don't want to do "cool stuff" all the time. I realize this is what lots of 4e players do want and its very reasonable for them to ask for this. But for me it waters down the overall excitement of the game when I am given buttons for all occassions.

This is important because its why we spend hours and hours flaming one another on this topic. Fun is subjective. Its why the phrase tyranny of fun cropped up in the wake of 4e: for some people the 4e approach, while intended to make the game fun at all times, was anything but fun.

In short, I don't believe you. I don't actually think you (or anyone else) like sitting around staring at the wall for hours at a time because combat take 3 hours out of every 4 hour game session and your playing the character who doesn't do much in combat. I think you may have experienced that in games you otherwise enjoyed, and maybe you think that its a necessary aspect of games you will enjoy in the future- but I think you are wrong about your own preferences.

There are certain traits about good game design. For example, all things being equal and down to a limit, a game that has less idle time between player decisions is better than a game with more. A game where decisions are meaningful is better than a game where decisions are rote. These many varied facts may not be so precise that we can invent a fantasy game in a lab, but they're still useful.

TLDR: The reason peek-a-boo is fascinating for infants to play with their parents but mind numbing for a 35 year old to play with HIS parents is because of objective facts about human cognition, not subjective preference.

 

[Mercutio01]

I don't actually think you (or anyone else) like sitting around staring at the wall for hours at a time because combat take 3 hours out of every 4 hour game session and your playing the character who doesn't do much in combat.

This is a ridiculous strawman and doesn't represent any game of D&D I've ever played.

EDIT: It does, however, represent at least a few games of Shadowrun I've played in.

 

[Hussar]

I think it is a judgement call. Some of the elements in 4e appeared in some sourcebooks during 3e for example. Not sure that those kinds of things count. Personally i think 4e is not at all close, in any way to 3e. They are two completely different games ImO. The classes are structured in a completely Different. Vancian casters (in the manner they existed in the previous three editions) are effectively removed from the game. All the martial classes suddenly have power resources. The transition from 2e to 3e made some logicial sense and while different, i could easily see 3e as a new iteration of 2e. 4e was a massive overhaul. It was intended to be.

I look at it like this.

Take someone who has only played AD&D and sit them down and give them a 3e character sheet for a 6th level Barbarian. Would they be able to play? Not really. Every single element on that character sheet is different. The meaning of the stats are completely different, skills are completely different, AC, saving throws, abilities, etc. Every single element on that character sheet is different. The second combat starts, every element is also different - initiative, attacks (what's an iterative attack? How do you disarm? etc). Heck, even the time scale and all effect scales are completely different.

Now, take a 3e player and give him a 4e character sheet, of, again, a 6th level barbarian. Could he play? I think so. Stats are the same. Skills are determined the same, although the list is a bit different. Combat works almost exactly the same. While Vancian casters are gone, anyone who has played a Vancian caster will pretty much instantly recognize how AEDU works. Gridded combat? Not a problem, been doing that for years.

Are there differences? Of course. They are different editions. But, it's disingenuous to claim that 3e is closer to 2e than 4e mechanically. 3e shares virtually no mechanics with 2e while 4e's mechanics are pretty close. Even encounter design isn't all that different. CR and EL vs encounter budget is not a huge jump.

/edit [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] You mentioned sliding DC's. There's two points here. One, the simple existence of DC's in the first place puts 3e and 4e in the same camp - AD&D didn't have DC's at all - any non-weapon proficiency check was based solely on the character's applicable stat. Two, 3e did have sliding DC's based on PC level, although they didn't call them out explicitly. If you don't think so, I would point to pretty much every single module out there. Look at the DC's - they scale by the level that the module is meant for. AD&D again, didn't do this at all. When your thief raised his Open Locks skill, all locks (with some exceptions) became easier. There might have been some specific locks that would up the difficulty (typically with some -X% penalty for success for this or that reason) but, by and large, the difficulty of all locks depended solely on the thief's Open Locks skill.

3e was a massive overhaul of the AD&D system. Very, very few mechanics managed to survive the transition and virtually none managed untouched. Going from 3e to 4e, most of the base mechanics are exactly the same. Stat meanings, D20 roll high, etc, etc. There are some obvious differences, of course - healing being a big example, but, even there, that's different from 3e to 2e. In 2e, you got Cure Light Wounds as a 1st level spell (1d8 HP) and Cure Serious at 4th. In 3e, you could convert all cleric spells to healing and it scaled by the level of the caster (with limits). Never mind the crafting rules changes.

I'll put it this way. Why do you think there's an entire board of Grognards that, to this day, refuses to accept 3e as even a version of D&D? It's not because of all those similarities that BRG is trying to put forward.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I am sorry hussar but I am still not convinced.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I look at it like this.

Take someone who has only played AD&D and sit them down and give them a 3e character sheet for a 6th level Barbarian. Would they be able to play? Not really. Every single element on that character sheet is different. The meaning of the stats are completely different, skills are completely different, AC, saving throws, abilities, etc. Every single element on that character sheet is different. The second combat starts, every element is also different - initiative, attacks (what's an iterative attack? How do you disarm? etc). Heck, even the time scale and all effect scales are completely different.

Now, take a 3e player and give him a 4e character sheet, of, again, a 6th level barbarian. Could he play? I think so. Stats are the same. Skills are determined the same, although the list is a bit different. Combat works almost exactly the same. While Vancian casters are gone, anyone who has played a Vancian caster will pretty much instantly recognize how AEDU works. Gridded combat? Not a problem, been doing that for years.

Are there differences? Of course. They are different editions. But, it's disingenuous to claim that 3e is closer to 2e than 4e mechanically. 3e shares virtually no mechanics with 2e while 4e's mechanics are pretty close. Even encounter design isn't all that different. CR and EL vs encounter budget is not a huge jump.

An interesting analogy but I don't know that I agree with it.

Starting as a 2e player, the first 3e book I owned (because it was a gift) was the Monster Manual. I didn't even see a PHB or DMG for months. I understood what AC, attack bonus, skills, and all that were intuitively. I also recall later playing the 2e/3e hybrid elements in BGII, which made perfect sense to me.

As to the 3e-4e comparison, I do think comprehension of character abilities is easy enough, but I don't think that means that the games are fundamentally similar. They may both have an attack bonus, but how you get that bonus and what you do with it are both rather different.