D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[D'karr]

Back to the best things of 4e, Quests. Man did my players go all out on these.

It was an extremely simple, and interesting way to reward the players for coming up with their own campaign. It made my job much easier when players kept coming with interesting things to pursue. It also made the campaign much more interesting. These quests dovetailed into Paragon Path selections, and all sort of interesting occurrences in the game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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).

What was innovative in OtE, that 4e picked up?

 

[Tony Vargas]

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.

I suppose that should really depend on the 'social contract.' :sigh: In theory, the DM creates the world and PCs create the characters, and the two should meet only in that characters should be possible (however improbable) in the world. That can be kinda bland, though.

In 13A, for instance, each PC gets 'one unique thing' that can quite easily set up something significant in or about the world. That's players poaching on the DMs traditional preserve, but it can work out very well.

In cooperative storytelling exercises, the players can create the world and characters more or less in parallel.

Of course, system also makes a difference. In old-school D&D, DMs adding elements to the adventure that could change and re-define characters was pretty common. I don't think it's a coincidence that there was very little character customizeability back then. Race and class were about it. So you didn't play the concept you wanted, you played the closest race/class combo to it. If two characters of the same class were suffering some sort of twin syndrome, the DM could give them different magic items or arbitrary character-altering effects, and, *poof* they were different again. Or, if a player really wanted a character that required exceptions to the race/class rules, the DM might add or modify something to provide it.

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.

Modern D&D gave players a lot more character customization options, so there was less need for the DM to go messing with PCs, both because they were already differentiated, /and/ because players were probably invested in the PC being 'just so,' the way he envisioned it. A player who just didn't have a strong concept and wanted to 'see how his character developed,' OTOH, would be just asking for it....

 

[D'karr]

Another best - the Electronic Tools (Offline CB, Offline MB, Compendium, & Masterplan). The first two were impressive, if buggy. With third party work they became very customizable (feats, magic items, classes, themes) - I've added a bunch of things for my campaign. To this day I still use them.

Compendium was/is extremely useful. It would have been nice if it was also offline, but I've made do with other tools for this.

The last one (Masterplan) was one extremely useful adventure and campaign tool. WotC should have really picked up this one as a sort of base to develop a Master Tools suite.

 

[Bluenose]

Different rulesets lend themselves toward different approaches; 3.x is better for Sim because it uses consistent rules for PCs and NPCs, where 4E is better for Narrative because it uses narrative weight to determine NPC stats (among other things). For people who enjoy the Sim aspect of a game, they're likely to get a better experience out of a 3.x game than out of a 4E game. For people who enjoy literary-style drama, and are looking to create those situations in-game, they're likely to get a better experience from 4E.

You don't play Feng Shui for its process-sim aspects. That's just a recipe for disappointment.

I don't think either 3e or 4e is particularly good at the things you're saying they're good at. What is 3e trying to Sim, after all? And a game where there's so much argument about what hit points are which uses them so heavily in combat resolution seems to have some problem with process. And 4e doesn't have that much in the way of narrative mechanics; 5e inarguably has more. Both seem far more inclined to a Gamist agenda than anything else.

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.

There were several quite large games (large by tRPG standards at least) which were mechanically perfectly solid. Some of those could have done either a more Sim-my or more Narrative-y game than either 2e or the WW games.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't think either 3e or 4e is particularly good at the things you're saying they're good at. What is 3e trying to Sim, after all? And a game where there's so much argument about what hit points are which uses them so heavily in combat resolution seems to have some problem with process.

I'm not sure that there's as much of an argument about HP within the Sim camp. Really, though, even that is tangential as long as they can be treated consistently. A hardcore Sim player running a 3.X game will have a codified definition of what HP represent, and can describe the OneTrueNarrative that goes along with gaining or losing HP. It might be vague, but it won't be abstract. (Or, at least, it will be much less abstract than a lot of what you hear on these boards.)

Process Sim advocates are good at deriving game mechanics directly from narrative information, in a one-for-one correlation, if the system allows for it.

And 4e doesn't have that much in the way of narrative mechanics; 5e inarguably has more. Both seem far more inclined to a Gamist agenda than anything else.

I would argue that point. And it's not a matter of Narrative mechanics, as an absolute; it's a matter of Narrative mechanics in the hands of the players. Some 4E powers work because the players are empowered to make them work, and if there's an argument to that point, I haven't heard it. And the 4E design philosophy was that, unless I have forgotten, everything is core - the DM was not heavily encouraged to change things.

By contrast, 5E has a couple of optional rules which grant Narrative control to the players, but they're only ever optional. Don't forget that Feats, as a whole, are entirely optional; and even if feats are allowed, individual feats can also be disallowed. The DM is encouraged to do so, in an effort to customize the world and the gameplay experience. And Inspiration is only ever awarded by the DM, so it can only ever be used in a manner approved by the DM.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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.

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.

I'm still not sure that I understand. Must there be deception involved, for it to be Illusionism? If I set up the Big Bad with a trusted lieutenant who can carry the plot forward if the Big Bad falls, is it only Illusionism if I introduce the lieutenant after the fact, because I changed the narrative to subvert player actions?

In the playstyle to which I am accustomed, the DM isn't free to covertly change things after they've been established. The DM does have a duty of integrity to not meta-game it, by changing the backstory with full knowledge of later events. It's one of those things about being a good DM. And the players need to trust the DM, which can be hard since there's no way for them to know if the DM is "cheating" in this manner.

But the DM can't just come out and declare the stakes, like that. The DM can't say, "If you beat the Big Bad in combat, and he does not escape, then the plot is foiled and he'll never both you again". That would be a lie, in this case. And even if it was true, because the DM didn't have the Big Bad set up some sort of contingency plan, it seems like it would spoil a lot of the fun.

And the DM certainly can't say, "If you beat the Big Bad in combat, it doesn't even matter, because there's a trusted lieutenant who is going to take over the evil plot". That would be totally anti-climactic for the players. They don't get to celebrate beating the Big Bad, and there's no hope spot.

I guess the sticking point for me is that world-setting backstories are supposed to be covertly-authored. It's fun for players to discover clues and figure out what's going on for themselves. They just aren't supposed to be covertly-edited.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't think either 3e or 4e is particularly good at the things you're saying they're good at. What is 3e trying to Sim, after all? And a game where there's so much argument about what hit points are which uses them so heavily in combat resolution seems to have some problem with process. And 4e doesn't have that much in the way of narrative mechanics

Sim isn't really simulation, it's more like - and sim folks hate to hear this - a game that makes all the compromises actual simulation requires (giving up playability, balance, and even fairness & prioritizing even 'fun' pretty low), without actually simulating anything but itself.

But, yes, 3e an 4e are both very 'gamist' - that is, they're actually designed like games. 3e more in the meta-game, 4e more in actual play. 3e feels like sim because it's decidedly imbalanced (in play - it's perfectly fair in the meta-game) and fairly complete, with rules to cover most everything, including things that likely never have a direct influence on the characters. 4e can feel narrativist because powers give players some agency, and you can re-skin powers, giving you character abilities that can be viewed as 'plot coupons' or the like. But you can approach any ed of D&D (or any other RPG) with any of the GNS agendas, if that's really what you want.

 

[D'karr]

The reason I was not heavily encouraged to change things in 4e was not because everything was core. It was because most things actually worked as advertised, without hidden knock-on effects. When I actually needed to change things the system had enough supporting structures to make the changes I wanted/needed with little (minor) modification(s). On the other end of the spectrum - major modifications you had Dark Sun & Gamma World. Dark Sun works perfectly fine within the core system of 4e, even when it removes entire core concepts, such as divine magic and anything related. The game still just works and is internally consistent. Then you have Gamma World which is a major hack of 4e, and it still works fantastically within the base assumptions of 4e. You can even take equipment and monsters from Gamma World and place them directly into a 4e game with nary a bit of issue.

The core system is solid in framework and still flexible enough for hacking with little effort.

4e is the first edition of D&D in which I had absolutely no problem with players pretty much picking anything, from any source, and implementing it verbatim without mechanical changes into the game. Some of it might have needed story tweaking to make fit, but that was minor. The mechanics worked. By contrast when my players in 3.x came up with anything from any source it was usually a chore to ferret out if the option was even workable (gamewise) for the campaign (mechanically). Neither of the systems had any problem on the "storywise" for an option. Mechanically there was a world of difference between options and that is usually a major problem for the DM.

The cries of "core only campaign" were quite common before I ran 4e. With 4e it did not matter if the source was Dragon magazine (DDI), Heroes of Whateverland, Notcorebookicon, or a Player Options book - the options pretty much worked. We even used stuff that was not from WotC and it still worked (Goodman Games, etc.)

 

[Manbearcat]

Heroes of Whateverland, Notcorebookicon

Bringing it back around to the heart of the thread, these two are by far my favorite 4e supplements. I've consulted the Ministry of Silly Sourcebooks and they approve as well.