D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how 4E could have looked

pemerton

Legend
the players were happy with the result and that the decisions they had taken had paid off (like bringing the father along and a few others).
The presence of the father is interesting because of the very many different ways it might factor into adjudication. Some examples:

* Because the father is with you, persuasion is a superior option to what it otherwise might have been;

* Because the father is with you, persuasion is a viable option which it otherwise would not have been;

* Because the father is with you, when you try to persuade there are some moves open to you (eg playing on filial loyalty; threatening to executive him; etc) which otherwise wouldn't be possible.​

Different approaches prioritise different sorts of engagement with the fiction, and different approaches to play. Thus, the first approach tends to reward a sort of puzzle-solving or resource-maximisation style ("Cool, we got the thing - in this case the dad - that will give us a bonus!"). The second and third might reward that, if the possibilities that are opened up are mechanically advantageous. But they might also shift the emphasis to something else - eg making it possible to play on filial loyalty, or threaten to execute the father, might not change the maths but change the thematic weight of what is going on in play.

I think that these different ways of thinking about the relationship between fiction and mechanics merit more attention on these boards than they typically get.
 

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pemerton

Legend
he is looking at the rules as discrete elements in the game. Which is fine when talking about 3e and AD&D. The rules were meant as discrete elements. Healing was largely divorced from anything else - you either healed naturally in down time or you healed magically. 3e had some in combat healing, true, but, again, that was 100% magical. Healing is a discrete element.

But, 4e doesn't work that way. 4e is very much holistic.
The only thing I would disagree with here is that I think AD&D and 3E are holistic too - it's just that many people have so strongly internalised whatever mode of play they grew up on (be that classic Gygaxian skilled play, or post-DL/2nd ed erar "storytelling", or whatever) that they don't notice the context within which the particular discrete rules make sense. Indeed, it seems that for plenty of people that internalised context just is what they take RPGing to be.

It's a bit like a comment by philosopher Hilary Putnam about causation: the humans blame the stray match for the forest fire, but the Martians blame all that oxygen in the atmosphere!

When a game comes along which rests on a different set of premises - as 4e does, in my view, relative to AD&D and 3E - then the discrete elements need to be recontextualilsed into that new framework. It's not oxygen anymore, and so whatever the discrete elements are, they're not doing quite the same thing as your matches used to. This demand for recontextualisation isn't appealing to some people.
 

pemerton

Legend
In my recent game, I introduced a remorhaz tearing out from under the tundra automatically creating an Ice Fracture (LotCS Statistics Next page 7). So while the PCs were having to deal with this beast they were also knocked prone and found themselves falling (10-50 feet) into freezing water or hanging onto some icy ledge or outcropping, having to scramble to get to the surface otherwise they were just sitting ducks as the beast had complete terrain advantage.
In my mind all that and more should have been added to the MM for the remorhaz entry.
This is how I did that sort of thing for the tarrasque in 4e:

Minor Actions – at will
Tail slap (melee 3 vs 1 target not attacked with any bite this turn): +32 vs Fort for 6d12+21, push 4 sq & knock prone Miss: creates a collapsing fissure extending 10 sq from a sq adj to the target, in a direction of the tarrasque’s choosing, that lasts until E of a T in which the fissure makes an attack; if this inc a sq occupied by a Medium creature or if a Medium creature enters a sq, attacks as free action: +32 vs Ref for 2d12+9, restrained & OG 10 (escape DC 32 ends both)
 

Sadras

Legend
The presence of the father is interesting because of the very many different ways it might factor into adjudication. Some examples:
* Because the father is with you, persuasion is a superior option to what it otherwise might have been;

* Because the father is with you, persuasion is a viable option which it otherwise would not have been;

* Because the father is with you, when you try to persuade there are some moves open to you (eg playing on filial loyalty; threatening to executive him; etc) which otherwise wouldn't be possible.​

Different approaches prioritise different sorts of engagement with the fiction, and different approaches to play. Thus, the first approach tends to reward a sort of puzzle-solving or resource-maximisation style ("Cool, we got the thing - in this case the dad - that will give us a bonus!"). The second and third might reward that, if the possibilities that are opened up are mechanically advantageous. But they might also shift the emphasis to something else - eg making it possible to play on filial loyalty, or threaten to execute the father, might not change the maths but change the thematic weight of what is going on in play.

I think that these different ways of thinking about the relationship between fiction and mechanics merit more attention on these boards than they typically get.

Agree. I had not thought about it on this level.

This is how I did that sort of thing for the tarrasque in 4e:

Good job. I like how when fighting these terrifying monsters, misses might not be as deadly, but have the potential of creating complications as the landscape in the combat continually changes forcing PCs to reassess risks and re-evaluate their strategy. Makes for an exciting combat.
 

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight
When a game comes along which rests on a different set of premises - as 4e does, in my view, relative to AD&D and 3E - then the discrete elements need to be recontextualilsed into that new framework. It's not oxygen anymore, and so whatever the discrete elements are, they're not doing quite the same thing as your matches used to. This demand for recontextualisation isn't appealing to some people.

For me 4e to the contrary created context for many things to make sense. Using just one attribute for attacks is now a simplified expression of fighting style instead of feeling like treating all combat as based on brute force.

It brought home advancing hit points as realization of the legendary and mythic nature of the big damn heroes and well hit points feel as the abstraction is fully embraced. In 1e there was a split personality going on where the above was happening and yet there was a plethora of save or die effects (so the awesomeness of Gygax describing how Conan didnt fall to some critical hit ie that narrative immunity part from the felt hollow)

For me 4e realized many of the premises in 1e and 2e as well which for the most part while expressed conceptually never actually made it functionally into play... Anything from the fighters defender role to his warrior lord role much later.

Without 4e I am pretty sure I wouldnt have had much renewed interest in D&D and I might have never introduced it to my kids but went with various indie games (like Fate or Burning Wheel or other things). My first experience with rpgs was not "just D&D" but rather included exposure to other ways of looking at things RQ was not vastly different but enough so to imply other possibilities in the 70s and that some might make sense so DnDisms might not have taken a seat as the only way to reach the goal.
 
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pemerton

Legend
Without 4e I am pretty sure I wouldnt have had much renewed interest in D&D
This is also true in my case. For nearly 20 years my primary RPG was Rolemaster. I also played various games on the side: AD&D, and various BRP variants like Stormbringer/Elric, CoC and RQ. I noticed the arrival of 3E, and played a small amout of it, but it didn't seem super-exciting to me.

The announcement of 4e came at the same time as a second long-running RM campaign was coming to its conclusion, and also as our group was undergoing reconfiguration due to some members moving to the UK, resulting in merging two groups (with some overlap in membership, and the other of which had been playing 3E) into one.

It was obvious from the get-go that (i) 4e would have a mechanical heft comparable to RM, and (ii) it would be almost the opposite of RM in its approach to mechanics, adjudication and the relationship between these things and the fiction.

It brought home advancing hit points as realization of the legendary and mythic nature of the big damn heroes and well hit points feel as the abstraction is fully embraced. In 1e there was a split personality going on where the above was happening and yet there was a plethora of save or die effects (so the awesomeness of Gygax describing how Conan didnt fall to some critical hit ie that narrative immunity part from the felt hollow)

For me 4e realized many of the premises in 1e and 2e as well which for the most part while expressed conceptually never actually made it functionally into play... Anything from the fighters defender role to his warrior lord role much later.
Over the past decade or thereabouts I've often posted that 4e fully delivers on the Gygaxian conception of hp and saving throws as a "fortune in the middle" mechanic that can be narrated as skill, luck, verve, and anything else that contributes to staying power.

And I've also often posted that it delivered on the promise of Moldvay Basic's foreword:

This is what I want from a game: a game in which, if I play by the rules, the player experience will be that which the story elements of the game appeared to promise.

The first version of D&D I played that ever really came close to this was (AD&D) Oriental Adventures. 4e is the next version that has given me this.

From Tom Moldvay's Foreword to the Basic Rulebook (page B2, and dated 3 December 1980):

I was busy rescuing the captured maiden when the dragon showed up. Fifty feet of scaled terror glared down at us with smoldering red eyes. Tendrils of smoke drifted out from between fangs larger than daggers. The dragon blocked the only exit from the cave. . .

I unwrapped the sword which the mysterious cleric had given me. The sword was golden-tinted steel. Its hilt was set with a rainbow collection of precious gems. I shoulted my battle cry and charged.

My charge caught the dragon by surprise. Its titanic jaws snapped shut just inches from my face. I swung the golden sword with both arms. The swordblade bit into the dragon's neck and continued through to the other side. With an earth-shaking crash, the dragon dropped dead at my feet. The magic sword had saved my life and ended the reign of the dragon-tyrant. The countryside was freed and I could return as a hero.​

Those are classic fantasy tropes - the warrior as protagonist, the priest as mentor/guide, the dragon sorcerer as antagonist. This is what D&D promised to me in 1982, when I first got the Basic Set.
4e delivered.
 
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Garthanos

Arcadian Knight
Back on subject

Yeah, it’s brilliant at what it focused on. Best take on D&D combat across all editions. Here’s what I do - put those things [auras, force movement, shifting] in terrain features. That way, even as enemies drop you don’t lose combos or stuff that drives the action."[/HQ]

This reminded me of my idea of downed allies inspiring their friends in ( LazyLord / Princes Build Warlord ) fashion to help preserve the action economy even if the players get a set back and have their character Technically out of the fight. Where you inspire your ally to a moment of berserk and extra attacks or to rush across the battlefield and so on. In effect the player of the downed character gets to hand out his characters action economy LOL.
 


Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him
Can you say what you mean by "narrative"?

In most RPGs, the basic process of play is that a player declares an action which in some fashion engages the shared fiction, and then a check (or comparable resolution process) is established and undertaken. Common examples are things like "I poke the floor in front of me with my 10' pole" or "I raise my hand in a signal of peace to the goblins" or "I cast a fireball spell".

In many RPGs, there are some actions whose declation in the fiction more-or-less equates to performing a mechanical move in the game. In Gygax's AD&D, for instance, declaring "I listen at the door" enlivens a particular mechanical process (which contrasts with "I poke the floor in front of me with my 10' pole"). In 5e, declaring "I attack the goblin with my sword" or "I shoot the goblin with Magic Missiles" enlivens a particular mechanical process (the combat rules, and the casting rules, respectively). In most RPGs, there are also actions whose declaration enlivens no particular process; or envlivens a very generic process like "The referee determines the outcome" or "The referee will determine a throw that must be made." Moldvay Basic and Classic Traveller in particular have a lot of this.

4e's generic process is a bit less open-ended than Moldvay Basic and Classic Traveller: if the referee determines that a throw must be made, by default it will be made on a d20, will involve adding a stat or perhaps skill bonus, and will be against a DC selected from a DC-by-level chart. What makes it fiction first is that the mechanics establish an abstract structure (at this PC level the appropriate DC is such-and-such) but don't peg any particular fiction to that structure. The fiction is given elsewhere, prior to the mechanics. This is why you can do stuff with 4e that can't easily be done with Moldvay Basic, like compression the default paragon fiction into the mechanics of upper heroic (which the Neverwinter supplement did) or extending the default paragon ficition into the mechanics of epic (which is what the Dark Sun supplements did).

To me, 5e does not seem to present an abstract mathematical structure onto which prior fiction is then appeneded. It doesn't have the mechanisms that I associate with such a structure, which in 4e are the DC-by-level chart, the corresponding creature build charts, the notion of "minionisation", etc. And it seems to have the mechanisms that I associate with a pegging of particular fiction to particular mechanics, like creatures whose mechanical specification is constant across all levels, and DCs which seem to be presented as "objective" rather than "subjective" - which in this thread has been reinforced by the suggestion that the way you gate something against a 1st level PC is by setting the DC at 27: that's mechanics before fiction, not vice versa.

By "narrative" here you seem to mean "genre" and other associated aspects of fiction (tone, tropes, etc). But that doesn't go to the question I am asking about adjudication. Again, and to reiterate, if the way you gate things against 1st level PCs is by setting DCs that are mechanically impossible foe them, that is mechanics first, not fiction first. The mechanics are determining the feasibility of that action declaration, not the fiction.

That's not the example at issue, though. No one has suggested that the way in which 4e empowers upper level martial PCs is by allowing the GM to say "yes" without requiring a roll. The dicussion has been about the methodology for setting rolls, and in particular whether the DC set for Konan's player is the same as the DC set for the player of a 1st level fighter.

To me, this text appears to imply that DCs are "objecive" rather than "subjective" - mechanics first rather than fiction first in the sense I have set out in this post.

In 4e if there's no chance for an action to succeed then no roll should take place. That's not a very distinctive princple.

But as far as the GM decides, I'm asking what principles are expected to guide a GM in this respect. The main answer this thread has supplied is martial PCs can't do supernatural things. This has been reinforced by references to bounded accuracy, which imply that DCs are "objective" so that if the GM sets (say) a DC 20 for the 15th level PC then that is what the DC would be for a 1st level PC also.

Am I wrong? Are there actual play examples to be given where the action was judged impossible for a 1st level PC but DC 15 (and so definitely feasible) for a 15th level PC?

By "narrative" I mean the story. The players in the game declare actions their character would like to do, the DM judges how difficult that might be (based in natural language narrative terms), and then the mechanics kick in.
 

OK on this "I would’ve much preferred the ability to adopt any role within the core 4 by giving players a big choice at level 1, an option that placed an overlay on every power you used or that gave you a new way to use them."
Basically have Source Specific Powers and less class powers. But I think combining that with having BIG differing stances to dynamically switch role might be a better idea so that your hero can adjust role to circumstance. I have to defend this NPC right now vs I have to take down the big bad right now vs I have to do minion cleaning right now, I am inspiring allies in my interesting way, who need it right now.

and the obligatory
Argghhhh on this. " I wanted classes to have different power acquisition schedules"

And thematic differences seemed to have been carried fine.

I know this is a rather long-delayed comment on this, but....

I tried this design approach in HoML (both the one Mearls is talking about AND the options that [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION] mentions). This is REALLY REALLY HARD to make work, and there's a huge cost in terms of diluting the thematic coherence of the class' power list. You can't just 'add an overlay' and/or a class feature choice, or something similar and successfully transform one role to another. Roles are more deeply ingrained into the classes than that, and making 'role light' so you can simply swap them out is a poor substitute. This is basically why Strike! is uninteresting to me, the 'role matrix' approach it uses just doesn't really do justice to roles.

Now, I think its fine to do something akin to what the Berserker does in HotFW, make a 'switching' class that can toggle into a different role when it makes thematic/narrative sense. It is still hard to pull off well, and you won't suddenly stop being an X just because you are now in Y mode, but you can certainly go from 'high damage melee striker' to 'front line leader' or something like that and its workable.

One thing that was excellent about 4e was that the classes were almost inherently well-designed. Between power source and role and with the highly regularized structure of how you get powers through AEDU designers were hard-pressed to really screw it up (they did now and then but a solid 90% of all 4e classes are fine, and only maybe 2 out of almost 40 are really what I would call outright bad designs).
 

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