D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[EzekielRaiden]

One thing that happens in 3e and 4e, with the players having more 'build' power and more control over how their characters develop, is they have less interest in - and angst over - the tools DMs used to use to shape PCs. Magic items being one of the biggest ones.

We haven't seen a whole lot of magic pools permanently changing characters this millennium, either, for instance.

And all I can say is, thank God. The metric butt-tons of bullsh*t in earlier editions, with regard to magic items and "cursed equivalents," completely boggles my mind. If I had a character permanently screwed up by a DM (presumably gleefully) inflicting a cursed item on me...let's just say that, at bare minimum, heated words would be exchanged, and there's a non-negligible chance that I would not return to the table.

 

[JamesonCourage]

That kinda makes me want to ask, in people's experience, how much influence should the GM have over player characters? Like, are magic pools that either add +2 Strength or reduce it by 2 acceptable (since the PC gets to choose to drink it or not)? Are magic items? Vetoing PC back story? Etc.

To keep it on topic, I guess we should probably discuss this in terms of 4e. Like, how does 4e handle this classic play style preference issue? What does it encourage (wish lists come to mind)? I'm curious what people feel works best for their group, what works best for 4e, and how those things interacted.

 

[pemerton]

I'm still not clear on what it means. Either I'm proud to say that I'm an Illusionist, because that means the DM is trying to craft the illusion of a living and breathing world where the characters exist beyond just the plot; or I take umbrage at the accusation of being an Illusionist, because it implies that the DM is only giving players the illusion of freedom in anything they do.

I think [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] is right when he says you should be taking umbrage - although perhaps you should just be saying that you don't care about the same things that anti-illusionist RPGers care about.

Illusionism means that changes in the fiction are determined primarily not by player choices, but by covert GM decisions - either mechanical (@Manbearcat gave an example upthread, of a GM rolling the % dice on the "wilderness shelter" table but then ignoring the result) or via manipulation of backstory.

The former is debated a lot on these boards - there's a current fudging thread in one of the other sub-forums.

The latter is debated less often, but in many ways is more fundamental (in my view, at least). If the GM is free to introduce any old stuff by reference to secret or covertly-authored backstory - if there is no duty of integrity, owed by the GM towards the outcome of action resolution procedures - then the game is not under the players' control. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is a matter of preference.

A simple example would be the PCs killing the bad guy, so a lieutenant takes over and the plot rolls on. Another would be the PCs charm the chamberlain, and so courtly MUs detect their charm and take action against them. This is why systems like Burning Wheel are so insistent that the stakes of action resolution be clarified in advance, and then state that the GM is obliged to honour those stakes. Conversely, when there is no metagaming of that sort and everything is done in ingame terms by reference to a "living, breathing world" that only the GM has perfect knowledge of, the scope for this sort of manipulation of the fiction becomes rife!

a purely objective process-sim agenda does not lead to satisfyingly dramatic outcomes (from a genre/literary conceit/trope perspective) as an emergent aspect of authentically applying play procedures.

<snip>

How do we get consistent challenges, a world driven by empirical/reproducable causal logic, and satisfyingly dramatic outcomes (from a genre conceit/literary trope perspective)? Covert GM force. Illusionism. That is how. And you see it advocated for on this board left and right (even if people don't realize that illusionism - the subordination of player agency to GM will - is precisely what they're advocating for).

I agree with this.

4e was revolutionary for D&D, but, without the D&D label, would have been unremarkable and not terribly innovative back in 1990.

I don't agree. Over the Edge was innovative in 1992, and 4e was clearly designed and written by people who had encountered Over the Edge (and other, subsequent, indie games - Robin Laws' HeroWars/Quest is another obvious one, I think).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That kinda makes me want to ask, in people's experience, how much influence should the GM have over player characters? Like, are magic pools that either add +2 Strength or reduce it by 2 acceptable (since the PC gets to choose to drink it or not)? Are magic items? Vetoing PC back story? Etc.

Magic pool: Interesting. I probably wouldn't gamble on it myself, but given that it's optional I could buy it. I would, however, expect that these effects be explicitly stated to the player, or at least that the information given to the character would enable an informed decision. (You will hear me use that phrase--"informed decision"--an awful lot.) So, for example, "This is the Font of Kord, God of Strength! The worthy will receive his might, but the unworthy will be stricken. None can say who is worthy in advance; even Kord's own priests know their god does not like to be bound by rules. Of the people known to have drunk from the pool, about equal numbers have gained or lost strength." That would be a good, in-character way of presenting the information. It leaves the question open and a little scary, but gives the player (and importantly the character) equal odds of knowing what's going on. On the other hand, "This is the Font of Kord, God of Strength! Drink from it and you may be blessed or cursed--none can say until you drink!" would not enable an informed decision, because you have no idea what the odds are. Perhaps it is like the spring which became the river Dyne--almost everyone who drinks it loses, and only a few gain. Or perhaps it is the other way around! We have no idea.

"Magic Items" is far, far, far, far, FAR too broad for me to answer your question. What are you including in "magic items"? The alignment-changing things? The gender-changing things? Cursed items generally? Without more information I can't say. A LOT of the craptastic cursed items from 1e and 2e would upset me greatly if foisted upon me without my knowledge, and most people wouldn't WANT them if they knew what they were, so they're pretty much right out. That said, sentient items, or items that provide temptations or rewards if the player accepts a change in the character (not just corruption--a Good sentient item could lead Evil people on a path to redemption, after all)...all of those things could be very fun. Because, again, you're able to make at least SOME kind of informed decision about what happens.

"Vetoing" is something I generally...even calling it "frown upon" is too strong a phrase. I strongly prefer a DM who is willing to be flexible and adaptive, though that pointedly does NOT mean a DM who has to suborn all of his or her preferences to those of their group. This means DMs who are willing to give every request a fair hearing, and attempt to find a compromise that suits both parties. For example, let's say I come into a Greyhawk game wanting to play a Dragonborn. I would be irked if the DM just flat out said, "Nope sorry no Dragonborn in Greyhawk, try something else." I would be very pleased if the DM said, "Well, technically speaking there have never been Dragonborn in Greyhawk, but Greyhawk is just one part of a big world. Maybe you could be a wanderer from the deserts in the East (West? I don't know my Greyhawk geography well.), but that then leads to questions: why are you wandering so far from home? Why do essentially no other members of your people come to Greyhawk, even to trade?" Through answering these kinds of questions and having a genuinely open, genuinely flexible dialogue leads to LOTS of fun and almost always increases my attachment to my character and the world the character exists in.

That said, there are certain circumstances where even straight-up "vetoing" is appropriate, but usually only when an explicit statement is made in advance (so that I, as a person choosing to play or not to play, can make an informed decision). For example, if the DM's pitch is, "You are a group of centaurs, going on a quest to (etc. etc.)..." then it seems pretty reasonable for the DM to say "No" if I want to play a Dragonborn. The campaign pitch has very specific races in mind. Similarly, a "humanocentric" or "Hyborian Age style" campaign carries particular significance; Dark Sun has specific connotations that make arcane casters risky to play, and divine casters non-existent. So I'm not trying to say that it is NEVER EVER okay for a DM to have hard rules; I just expect the DM to be specific about any and all hard rules BEFORE I have any chance to think about what I want to play.

To keep it on topic, I guess we should probably discuss this in terms of 4e. Like, how does 4e handle this classic play style preference issue? What does it encourage (wish lists come to mind)? I'm curious what people feel works best for their group, what works best for 4e, and how those things interacted.

Well, in general (although it's not an explicitly stated thing anywhere IIRC), 4e has a "say 'yes and' or 'yes but'" policy. All books and articles (unless they expressly say otherwise) are Core--and, in general, they did a very good job of maintaining a common standard of power. Further, it encourages DMs to have an open mind--not absolutely permissive, but always being willing to at least consider what a player wants. As I've said elsewhere, "Anything which opposes player enthusiasm for a non-abusive idea should generally be avoided." This doesn't mean that EVERY SINGLE non-abusive idea is bad. Just that, in general, you want to feed player enthusiasm, not fight it.

The "wish lists" are something, I guess, though I never really cared for them per se. Instead, I think DMs and players should just have a nice talk about the kinds of ways they want to play their character, and continue to have talks over time about what they're enjoying or not enjoying. So, for instance, a Rogue who wants to do an "Errol Flynn" kind of thing with rapier and cloak; DM takes that into account and that helps to shape what loot the party sees. Later on, the Rogue decides that that's not really doing it for her, so she's going to rebuild herself for being a cunning poisoner and dagger-fighter. This, too, shapes the kinds of things the group runs into.

There's also reskinning, which 4e explicitly encouraged on multiple occasions; there was even a Dragon article specifically about the authors' advice to people who want to reskin stuff. It specifically said that, as long as it doesn't seem abusive or intended to make a strange combination, DMs should totally be willing to do stuff like changing the keywords and damage types of powers (I believe the specific example was changing a Wizard Fire power to Cold because the Wizard player wanted to be cold-themed).

Finally, 4e's Quests were a pretty big way for players and DMs to jointly shape the direction of both the individual character and the campaign as a whole. I haven't had much chance to see them in action, but I'm sure they would be helpful.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And all I can say is, thank God. The metric butt-tons of bullsh*t in earlier editions, with regard to magic items and "cursed equivalents," completely boggles my mind. If I had a character permanently screwed up by a DM (presumably gleefully) inflicting a cursed item on me...let's just say that, at bare minimum, heated words would be exchanged, and there's a non-negligible chance that I would not return to the table.

I think there was an aesthetic to it in the early game where it was less problematic. Your character had no 'build options', maybe he had some spells, but even those were somewhat more limited than in later editions. The cleric didn't even get a spell until level 2. So, you progressed by getting items, or accumulating other assets in the game. Magic was a big benny though, you really wanted some! Cursed items were just the risk you took, along with all the traps and etc. If the players were careful and patient they could suss out the bad stuff and avoid it, mostly. Otherwise you just took the gamble. Such items really weren't intended to be used much, they were just a threat by their very existence. Now and then the threat would be actualized, but there were always things like 'Remove Curse', you just had to get time and money to do it.

Nowadays, in the day and age of participatory narratively coherent games something like 'girdle of sex change' would just seem silly. It may still work fine in a slapstick game, but its function as a threat or a price for magic largely isn't germane anymore when magic is part of character builds. Such items nowadays really have to be devil's bargains, artifacts or something that have a dark side. You can access extra power, for a while, but at some sort of price. Curses and such then become better modeled as just narrative aspects of build choices the player made. Much like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s Demon Skin Adept.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That kinda makes me want to ask, in people's experience, how much influence should the GM have over player characters? Like, are magic pools that either add +2 Strength or reduce it by 2 acceptable (since the PC gets to choose to drink it or not)? Are magic items? Vetoing PC back story? Etc.

To keep it on topic, I guess we should probably discuss this in terms of 4e. Like, how does 4e handle this classic play style preference issue? What does it encourage (wish lists come to mind)? I'm curious what people feel works best for their group, what works best for 4e, and how those things interacted.

Hmmmm. Somewhat depends on the tone of the game (see my last post). I don't personally like to mess too much with the PCs, but OTOH you will see some situations where you KNOW that you can add to the player's experience. Far back in time (long before 4e) my sister and I were playing probably Basic, or maybe 1e, and her dwarf character stuck his hand into a trapped chest. So, I had the nice blade trap lop her hand off! Forever more the character was a one-handed dwarf. I don't think we ever penalized her for it or really changed her stats, but it did have some narrative impact. The character ever after went around with a hook, and finally a magical sword grafted into her body. So, I do look at chances to 'hack' PCs as opportunities, but it has to work for everyone or its not fun.

As for what 4e does... It isn't really especially helpful. The rules themselves are quite amenable to various things, its an easy system to hack on in this way. There are plenty of keywords to inform things, powers that can be reused in all sorts of ways, etc. In the 'penalizing a character' department that was never hard. Honestly though, I suggest mostly narrative 'penalties' (like the one-handed dwarf). I guess the equivalent 4e character might want to pick certain specific build options (IE, use a shield and one-handed weapons).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't agree. Over the Edge was innovative in 1992, and 4e was clearly designed and written by people who had encountered Over the Edge (and other, subsequent, indie games - Robin Laws' HeroWars/Quest is another obvious one, I think).

Yeah, I think 4e would have been pretty impressive in 1990. Remember, the state of the art back then was what? 2e and WW's awful Story Teller 'system' (if it even deserves the moniker). 2e was utterly incoherent to its goals, and WW's philosophy of gaming was, frankly, inimical to a good game. There were some interesting games out there of course, but they were very much smaller affairs, and not widely known at the time. An edition of D&D that espoused then-cutting-edge game design concepts such as 4e does would have been hugely significant.

I think it would have been MUCH better received at that time too. The truth is a lot of the D&D community was hankering for real change at the end of the life of 1e. 2e really didn't fulfill that need. Its mechanics were a very slight refresh of 1e's and failed to impress much of anyone. A radical redesign would have at least reignited the fire of D&D in a way that 2e never did. You can see it in sales, 2e created a slight bump and then D&D sales went right back to the slow downward curve of 1e, it just didn't reinvigorate the game. I'm sure there would have been a BIG rukus over all the slain cows, but there was no OGL back then, no 3rd Party D&D, and a much thinner roster of innovative game designers. I think it would have 'stuck'. I think TSR also had the capacity to design adventures and settings in a way that WotC has never demonstrated.

 

[TwoSix]

In general, a game which prioritizes character builds as a point of system mastery is going to deprioritize the acquisition of random magical items, for pretty much the same reason that chess doesn't have a rule that your Queen has a 25% chance to turn into a pawn each turn.

 

[D'karr]

And all I can say is, thank God. The metric butt-tons of bullsh*t in earlier editions, with regard to magic items and "cursed equivalents," completely boggles my mind. If I had a character permanently screwed up by a DM (presumably gleefully) inflicting a cursed item on me...let's just say that, at bare minimum, heated words would be exchanged, and there's a non-negligible chance that I would not return to the table.

I think cursed items can play a fun and significant part in the game if they are drama pieces and dependent on the DM/player trust. In my last campaign I had a player that did receive a cursed item. The item itself was more powerful than most of the same "level" but it would always prefer to be used to anything else (intelligent item). However when battling demons it was worse than useless because it would reduce effectiveness, and make the wielder grant combat advantage. In a part of the campaign the item was fun because it's mechanics impacted the drama. It also introduced an entire quest to "redeem" the item (player prompted).

In other words, cursed items are fun when used sparingly, with player buy-in, and in the right context.

Cursed items to screw the players over are simply crap.

 

[tuxgeo]

I'm acknowledging some of the real differences between editions. I don't think there's any disagreement on what the differences actually are.

So, given the truth that there are differences, it follows that any preference for one edition over the other must be based on those differences. < snip >

[emphasis added, above]

The way I see it, "any preference . . . must be" partly "based on those differences."

By this I mean: Some preferences will also be partly based on imagination; particularly, for the gamers who read an edition but don't play it, they will imagine what the differences might mean in play, and they will also base their preferences partly on their imaginings.