D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[Ahnehnois]

/Both/ "Dumbed down" and "too complicated" seem pretty contradictory to me.

I can see how it would seem that way, but it isn't.

Let's look at a 3e example. In the PHB, there are a bunch of feats that grant a +2 bonus to two skills. Early supplements often proudly proclaimed that they offered "new feats", which were simply more +2/+2 feats. One could (and, say, Trailblazer has) make simply one feat that grants a +2 bonus to any two skills, possibly with a caveat that they be related in some way. The proliferation of +2/+2 feats is needlessly complicated, but is also dumbing the system down, by spelling out to us the +2 to Diplomacy and Sense Motive makes you a "Negotiator", when you could simply make the generic feat and let the people at the table describe what it means.

Similarly, spells commonly do this; there are many lesser/greater/mass versions that waste space with repeated text, when one spell could simply be written with several variations in the description (as the XPH does with powers and augmentation).

The same logic can be applied on a larger level to 4e powers, many of which are redundant or trivial variations on the same thing. Is giving you a whole bunch of different ways to do extra damage and add a status effect or forced movement complicated? Sure. But it's also dumbed down; it would be better to have one comprehensive system for determining how much damage you can do and what stunts you can add, rather than split that up into half the martial power descriptions.

You can have RP with anything, of course, but narrativist mechanics do kinda shove the story aspect of RP in your face. So, again, it's contradictory to claim a system is 'too narrativist' and somehow discourages RP.

Some people would say that creating rules for things that previously didn't have them discourages players from asserting themselves. That criticism has commonly been made of 3e Charisma-based skills: people saying that you can simply roll a Diplomacy check and not have to play out a negotiation with an NPC to get what you want. The same criticism has been made of 4e skill challenges: that by mechanizing noncombat encounters, players don't have to actually play them out.

In both cases, it raises larger issues about DMing technique, but the point has some validity.

Not that there are a lot of folks doing all that, just collectively you had these contradictory criticisms coming from every direction.

There are a lot of criticisms of 4e out there, and with all the above having been stated, I have no doubt there are some contradictions in the community. I take that as evidence of how diverse the community is.

It just often seems so un-productive, as terminology gets used and abused to try to paint this or that opinion or emotional reaction as fact.

This seems a difficult problem to work around. People are constantly trying to articulate what they think, but there is no accepted terminology to do so. I don't think the intent is to misrepresent opinion as fact, people are just trying to say what's on their mind and grasping at straws (dissociative, narrativist, videogamey, etc.) as to how to do so.

 

[Hussar]

On the notion of contradiction.

Here's how I see it. Not so much that possibly contradictory criticisms were being made of 4e and WOTC (there certainly were, but that's not really my beef), but rather that criticisms are made about 4e that are contradictory to what people claim that they want.

Here's an example.

In this and other threads, I'm told that some or all of the following should be done to make 3e run well:

• Campaigns should have a very high pace with little down time (reduce the ability for caster types to create magic items).
• Adventures should be time based (again to reduce the effectiveness of casters).
• Adventures should use random encounters (again to reduce the effectiveness of casters and to prod the players to push forward)
• Players should not choose options based on whether or not they are better than other options, but, should choose options based on some nebulous notion of roleplay.
• High level play is right out.

Now, all of the above have been advocated as ideas for making 3e run smoothly and well. Fair enough. But the very same people who advocate the above are then turning around and telling me that 4e only supports a very narrow playstyle and forces players into that playstyle. And, that's apparently a very bad thing.

You can see where my confusion lies. If forcing a narrow playstyle is a bad thing, why is 3e getting the pass that it supports a broad range of playstyles, when advocates are telling me it doesn't, bu then 4e gets lambasted for not supporting a specific playstyle?

 

[Ahnehnois]

You can see where my confusion lies. If forcing a narrow playstyle is a bad thing, why is 3e getting the pass that it supports a broad range of playstyles, when advocates are telling me it doesn't, bu then 4e gets lambasted for not supporting a specific playstyle?

In your example, people are presumably suggesting certain designs in order to balance certain character types, prevent "15 minute adventuring days", and so on. Not everyone had those problems to begin with, thus the suggestion is being made only for people who already play a certain style (I'm guessing a relatively gamist, competitive style with a lot of DM-player antagonism, in general). The game itself isn't forcing anything; most people can enjoy 3.X at whatever levels they play with whatever classes are in the book at whatever pace their game runs with whatever house rules they have. Only people whose game is broken need the fix.

4e purports to be the fix for a variety of problems, but for the people who didn't have those problems, it is rather forcible and more narrow in scope than previous versions of the game. (I also question whether it was actually effective in achieving its goals, but that's another discussion).

 

[pemerton]

This, for what it's worth, is completely wrong in many well designed non-simulationist RPGs.

Agreed, and saved me the trouble.

flavour, colour, descriptions don't need to involve any balance at all, and just moving straight from concept to mechanics to realise that concept can easily lead to broken or badly written mechanics

<snip>

Descriptions can include logic chains and inferences that are difficult to implement mechanically without unintended consequences, and easy to get wrong so the resulting mechanics actually describe something very different than what was actually intended.

I agree with this.

I think the issue being danced around here is the extreme positions of "flavour/colour text trumps everything" and "RAW mechanics trump everything". Anyone who argues for "flavour text first" can be seen as advocating the former, anyone who argues for mechanics to be prioritised can be seen as advocating the former.

But I don't agree with this: it seems to presuppose that the function of the rules is to model or determine some fictional content. Whereas, RPG rules can have a different function, of setting parameters around the narration of the fiction by the participants in the game. And 4e mechanics are frequently like this. So, for example, when a PC falls down a cliff, takes 80 hp damage, and survives, the mechanics don't tell anyone exactly what happened in the fiction: they just set parameters around narration (eg there was a fall, and the PC survived - they leave it up to the table to narrate the "how" of survival, which will take into account that, with 80 hp, we're probably talking a paragon PC).

With these sorts of rules, it doesn't generally make sense to talk about "flavour trumping RAW" or vice versa. The RAW set the parameters. Flavour is then narrated on the strength of that.

4e is cried as being the "Rules" over "Story" edition by some people.

It is also cried as being "Narrativist" vs. "Simulationist."

How does that parse? It is a narrative game that ignores story?

I'm not trying to be a jerk in asking, but I do wonder how that works out, and this thread seems to be the place.

No jerkiness at all.

My response reflects my own views and preferences.

4e works very much in the following way (the quote is from here):

Gamist [= "step on up"] and Narrativist [= "story now"] play often share the following things:

*Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. . .

*Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such [= working out what exactly has happened in the fiction] can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.

*More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.​

Those who criticise 4e tend to object to all these features of the game: they dislike the Actor Stance that the game sometimes encourages, because they see it as at odds with immersion; they dislike the fortune-in-the-middle (derided using such phrases as "Schroedinger's hit points"); they dislike the fact that the content of the fiction is settled by the group using mechanics and genre considerations as constraint, rather than "reading it off" the mechanics.

This is "rules over story" only in the sense that the fiction is narrated within the mechanical constraints, rather than the mechanics being adjusted to reflect some prior conception of the fiction. For me, at least, the point of playing this way is that it avoids railroading - because, in practice, those who subordinate the mechanics to some prior conception of the fiction are going to prioritise the GM's conception of the fiction.

Narrativist mechanics are ways of shaping anything, but their value is debatable. Most people look at D&D as being a very game-y and abstract simulator; narrativism is usually used to describe indie rpgs with more explicit mechanics for narrative control or plot generation.

In this case, the term "narrativist mechanics" is being improperly applied to 4e (just as it is often inaccurately referred to as being more "tactical" or more "videogamey" than other versions of D&D). The mechanics in question aren't simulatory of much of anything, and they don't work on a gamist level, so the term narrativism is used simply by process of elimination.

4e actually does have mechanics for narrative control: race, class and power selection, paragon path and epic destiny selection, etc (eg if a player chooses for his/her epic PC to be a demigod, that is an exercise of narrative control that constrains the GM).

But the main respect in which 4e supports narrative play is its lack of mechanics that impede, and the presence within it of mechanics that support, scene (= encounter) focused play.

 

[Hussar]

In your example, people are presumably suggesting certain designs in order to balance certain character types, prevent "15 minute adventuring days", and so on. Not everyone had those problems to begin with, thus the suggestion is being made only for people who already play a certain style (I'm guessing a relatively gamist, competitive style with a lot of DM-player antagonism, in general). The game itself isn't forcing anything; most people can enjoy 3.X at whatever levels they play with whatever classes are in the book at whatever pace their game runs with whatever house rules they have. Only people whose game is broken need the fix.

4e purports to be the fix for a variety of problems, but for the people who didn't have those problems, it is rather forcible and more narrow in scope than previous versions of the game. (I also question whether it was actually effective in achieving its goals, but that's another discussion).

But that's the thing. The people who didn't have problems in 3e were the people who were already following that specific playstyle that I outlined in my points above. So, sure, 3e supports that style of player very well. However, if you don't follow that advice, you start having problems. Thus any play outside of that very narrow playstyle is less and less supported the further you get from those points.

IOW, 3e was every bit as limited as 4e. The only difference is, 4e wasn't coy about it. It straight up said, "Do this for best results." 3e didn't. 3e pretended to be all things to everyone, but, when the rubber meets the road, suddenly we're locked into a very narrow playstyle and anything else results in poorer games.

/edit to add

To expand on my point. If I do the following:

• No time limits on adventures.
• Players decide pacing of adventures
• Players are free to choose any option they qualify for.
• High level play

my game is going to go kerblooie. It's going to be Angel Summoner and BMX bandit. The casters are going to have an absolute field day and the non-casters are going to be riding the pines. Yet, the style I just outlined there is very, very common. Sandbox play is predicated on the first three options. And none of this is because the players or DM are being jerks. It's a consequence of the mechanics.

 

[pemerton]

Oh and, your average professional with the right tools would have a 4 dice pool. With roughly one success per roll with that pool your looking at 6 seconds to pick the the average lock for a pro with the right tools. that seems entirely appropriate. More complicated locks will take longer.

Take the tools away and his dice pool is 2. Roughly doubling the time required.

Are you sure about that? The prospects of success in a single roll, with 2 dice, 30% success rate per die, and 2 successes needed, are 9%. Whereas with 4 dice, it is about a 35% chance of sucess in one check.

I'm not sure how WoD handles retries, but the time taken is almost certainly going to more than double when you drop from 4 to 2 dice, given that the prospects of success in a single check are reduced by three-quarters.

Its not as precise as a D20 mechanic because your moving in 10% increments rather then 5% increments.

Huh? That's not true at all. It's a very complex dice pool system - the increments aren't linear, for a start.

 

[slobo777]

my game is going to go kerblooie. It's going to be Angel Summoner and BMX bandit. The casters are going to have an absolute field day and the non-casters are going to be riding the pines. Yet, the style I just outlined there is very, very common. Sandbox play is predicated on the first three options. And none of this is because the players or DM are being jerks. It's a consequence of the mechanics.

This, being one of my favourite sketches from that show, is worth linking: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbzUfV3_JIA]BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner - Mitchell & Webb - YouTube[/ame]

 

[slobo777]

I'm not sure how WoD handles retries, but the time taken is almost certainly going to more than double when you drop from 4 to 2 dice, given that the prospects of success in a single check are reduced by three-quarters.

Actually in some situations successes can add up over multiple checks. So 2 dice can be just half the speed of 4 dice (provided nothing is taking your successes away). I'm not sure whether a GM would allow this to happen with picking a lock without some kind of difficulty penalty on retries though, since it would allow someone with 1 die to get through a locked door by persisting.

Although as usual, a locked door as a barrier is not hugely interesting, and discussing how accurately any individual feature is modelled in an RPG can miss the point.

For the record I hugely enjoyed Werewolf the Apocalypse (where my nickname slobo is from), but would happily admit that the dice system was not a contributor to that. It kind-of works, and has some nice ideas, but it breaks oddly and a lot of the system's roll game parts were unbalanced and wonky. You'd have a very hard time building something like 4E on top of it.

 

[pemerton]

@slobo77, I still don't think the half rate is right. I'm not up to calculating those cumulative probabilities, but the prospects of success on 2 checks of 2 dice are going to be 35% (same as 2 out of 4), whereas the prospects of success on 2 checks of 4 dice are going to be well above 70%.

I've only ever played one tournament scenario of Vampire, and so don't know much about WoD. I have calculated the odds for BW dice pools though (attached), and they show that calculating the odds based on changes in the size of the pool, or the success rate on the die, is not trivial. (In BW this is not such a big deal, because you're often not aiming for success in manipulating the size of the pool.)

 

[pemerton]

"How much should the fiction/story/narration stuff be tied directly to the mechanics?" For the gamer who prefers Simulationism, the answer is "as much as possible."

<snip>

So, when someone says: "4e is the rules over story edition!" I would tend to think that they are a Sim player. Without the mechanics reflecting their character directly, they "lose" the story.

I think this is right - as per my own post above.

D&D has traditionally dwelt primarily along the Gamist-Simulationist end of things, rarely having any mechanics dealing directly with "motivation" or a high-falutin' "premise" about the human condition or other "Narrativist" concerns. (An individual D&D game may, in fact, feature character motivations and the subsequent conflicts, but there is little in the mechanics to reflect or prompt that.)

I don't think narrativism has to be "high-falutin". Ron Edwards characterises The Dying Earth RPG as narrativist - correctly, in my view - but it hardly has a high-falutin premise. The aim of the game is to amuse your fellow participants by uttering tag lines in the cynical, detatched and verbose style of Vance's Dying Earth protagonists.

I don't find 4e to be particularly "narrativist" as a rules set, in comparison to the other versions of D&D. So when someone says: "4e is Narrativist not Simulationist." - Well, they're part right. 4e toned down Simulationism quite a bit. However, I suspect they are intending the "Narrativist" part as either a pejorative or just plainly misusing the term. It could also be acting as a stand-in for "Indie", as some gamers find some of 4e's mechanics to be inspired by Indie games, but whether that's pejorative would depend on the source.

As I think you know, I regard toning down the simulationism as pretty important to making low-key narrativist play possible: in my experience, it makes 4e the best version of D&D for narrativist play.

I also think that the toning down of the simulationism was achieved to a significant extent by adopting certain indie mechanics and tecniques, like overt fortune-in-the-middle mechanics, scene resolution (ie skill challenges), deliberate design in pursuit of pacing goals, etc.