D&D 3E/3.5 4E reminded me how much I like 3E

[GlassJaw]

3.x heavily encouraged the participants to rely on the system, it's formulas and the results of die rolls to determine what is true in the game world.

I'll agree that 3ed is a rules-heavy system but I don't remember reading anywhere in any of the books where the authors encouraged the players to never stray from the rules. If anything, the complete opposite is true. The rules should be the foundation, yes, but when they get in the way of "fun", they need to be brushed aside, even for just a moment.

To which the DM responded, before the player could roll, "You cut him down and he falls beneath your blade gasping his last breath" (or somesuch). The player was looking to use the combat system to give credibility to his intent to attack and kill his enemy. The DM, having no real stake in the scout continuing to live, just had the scout die.

The player was really ticked over this.

Then he should get over it. The DM made a decision on the fly that the PC had a high probability of defeating the enemy and spending the time to play it out wasn't important in the grand scheme of things. He wanted to keep things moving. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. I do it all the time when I DM.

I'm fairly confident that what Wulf is saying about on-the-fly rulings is this:

a) Don't let the rules slow the game down to a crawl when they are not enhancing the game or making it more fun, and

b) Don't let the rules force you into spending hours and hours of prep time when they won't bring any more fun to the actual play session. No one cares how many ranks The Dark Lord has in Craft (basketweaving). I'm also fairly certain he maxed his Concentration ranks too.

 

[LostSoul]

In the mouth of an inexperienced DM, "4e gives me explicit control of my game!" is evidence of a good lesson learned.

In the mouth of an experienced DM, "4e gives me explicit control of my game!" is specious praise.

I gotcha.

This makes me think - I approached 3e in one way, and I think that's why I'm all giddy about the explicit control. But why did I approach 3e that way? Maybe it was because of the group I was in, or maybe the way the rules were presented; I don't know.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Every game "allows" you to change it, in that there's no hired goon with a baseball bat shipped with the rules, ready to smack you if you change something.

I think the point people are making about 4e is that it's explicit about how you would change things, and provides a process and some clear guidelines.

You might think that something as simple as "If a rule bothers your group, talk through some possible options with them, then decide on an alternative you all agree with" is too trivial to be worth mentioning, but I don't think that's the case. If rules left out everything that a panel of long-time DMs took as "given", the book might be empty ... or on the other hand, the panel might never make a decision since what's obvious and "a given" to one person may not be to another.

In any case, the fact that people are praising it for this element kind of indicates that whatever it's doing, it is in fact doing it differently from past editions.

 

[Phlebas]

Every game "allows" you to change it, in that there's no hired goon with a baseball bat shipped with the rules, ready to smack you if you change something.

I think the point people are making about 4e is that it's explicit about how you would change things, and provides a process and some clear guidelines.

You might think that something as simple as "If a rule bothers your group, talk through some possible options with them, then decide on an alternative you all agree with" is too trivial to be worth mentioning, but I don't think that's the case. If rules left out everything that a panel of long-time DMs took as "given", the book might be empty ... or on the other hand, the panel might never make a decision since what's obvious and "a given" to one person may not be to another.

In any case, the fact that people are praising it for this element kind of indicates that whatever it's doing, it is in fact doing it differently from past editions.

Something that i hadn't considered before, is that i approach this topic from the vantage point of *cough* 20 years of DM'ing experience, which is possibly why i never saw the rules lawering that seems to have bedevilled some 3e games in my (and my equally ancient freinds) games

Certainly the 4e DMG was right to be much more explicit about the role the DM must take to keep the game moving. I just think most things could be (& often was) done as well in 3e...

 

[Spatula]

In order to do what you claim is "so obvious", one needs to effectively ignore the 3.x rules.

Rule 0 is a 3e rule. The DMG gives advice for alterting and changing the rules. The rules tell you that's it's ok to mess around with the rules. Strict RAW-play is certainly one way of playing the game, but it's allowed and even expected that groups will tinker with the system.

"Rules purity" has not been on anyone's (that I've met) list of critical factors in playing face-to-face games. The idea that you're not playing X if you're not exactly sticking to the RAW basically ignores how people actually use games. There are variations of, or (if you prefer) house rules for, pretty much any game humans have ever touched, because tastes differ and people are not afraid to ditch what isn't fun for them in favor of what is. How many different versions of poker are there?

And the difference between older editions of D&D and 3e/4e is that the older versions did not have rules for most situations (or alternatively, had unworkable rules). DMs wielded "power" because the DMs had to make up in order to run the game - not an ideal, since the quality of your play experience becomes directly tied to how incredible the DM is at making up on the fly. 3e and 4e instead use a central conflict resolution mechanic (d20 + modifiers vs a target number) and redesign the system to be modifier- instead of table-based. That's not "disempowering" the DM, it's giving the DM a stable framework to adjucate from. I don't see any particular difference between 3e and 4e in this regard, either. 4e further streamlines the d20 mechanic, making it easier to run on the fly. But the concept is 100% the same as it was in 3e: DM has a situation to resolve, chooses a DC, and calls for a d20 roll. DMs don't have any more "power" in 4e than they did in 3e.

A fictional example:

...of a DM arbitrarily using fiat to screw a player. Which isn't really relevant to anything in this thread.

 

[The Little Raven]

So, to generalize your argument, there shouldn't be any point at which a character is able to do something specifically because of their class, because that would be telling the other players that they should reroll?

No, to generalize my statement, there shouldn't be any point at which one character makes another character obsolete, especially while possessing the same character level. "Only wizards need apply" is beyond lame in a game about heroes of all types working together to kill things and take their stuff.

That sounds dreadfully dull.

What's dreadfully dull is the "wizard uber alles" mentality that made characters like Conan second-rate in D&D.

Same logic.

Not even close. You took my comments about making one class more viable than all others of a particular type and turned that into some "no niche protection" nonsense, when I have displayed nothing but support for niche protection. Niche protection, however, does not mean "wizard uber alles," like people seem to think (because they justify that the wizard is supposed to be able to do anything).

 

[GnomeWorks]

No, to generalize my statement, there shouldn't be any point at which one character makes another character obsolete, especially while possessing the same character level. "Only wizards need apply" is beyond lame in a game about heroes of all types working together to kill things and take their stuff.

There should be points wherein a specific class (or even race) shines, and in such a way that a member of another class could not have done so.

Being made obsolete in a few instances is acceptable, IMO. Those are the moments where one person in the group is given the spotlight without question, and there are times in-game when such a situation makes sense. It shouldn't be all the time, but it also shouldn't be something that never happens, either.

What's dreadfully dull is the "wizard uber alles" mentality that made characters like Conan second-rate in D&D.

I find Conan to be dreadfully dull and overrated, but I see where you're coming from, and agree to an extent.

There should be times where the wizard excels, and has his moment. There should be times where Conan excels, and has his moment. Neither should always overshadow the other, nor should they always be able to contribute exactly the same to every encounter. Their contributions should fluctuate with the situations at hand, with their average contributions over time being roughly equal.

 

[pemerton]

There should be points wherein a specific class (or even race) shines, and in such a way that a member of another class could not have done so.

<snip>

There should be times where the wizard excels, and has his moment. There should be times where Conan excels, and has his moment. Neither should always overshadow the other, nor should they always be able to contribute exactly the same to every encounter. Their contributions should fluctuate with the situations at hand, with their average contributions over time being roughly equal.

Moments of PC shining do not depend upon paper/rock/scissors design. If the encounter design is varied and each PC has a range of options, then such moments will emerge out of the play. And, in resulting from the play rather than being pre-determined by the mechanics, they may well be more meaningful to the players.

 

[Parlan]

Being made obsolete in a few instances is acceptable, IMO. Those are the moments where one person in the group is given the spotlight without question, and there are times in-game when such a situation makes sense. It shouldn't be all the time, but it also shouldn't be something that never happens, either.

Your observation is true but not particularly helpful, and not what TLR was talking about.

You're talking about the following:
There's a trap, and the spotlight swings to the rogue for the minute of real time it takes him to roll to disable.

Few people will argue this is a bad thing.

TLR was talking about the following:
The party is level 15 and the Rogue no longer bothers to scout ahead because, despite being optimized for stealth, the flying, silenced, invisible wizard with permanencied arcane sight is infinitely better at remaining hidden. The spotlight is on the wizard for the next 5 levels.

TLR (and I) find the above problematic, to say the least.

 

[Fenes]

What's dreadfully dull is the "wizard uber alles" mentality that made characters like Conan second-rate in D&D.

Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords fixed that in combat. Given the way warblades and co. can refresh their maneuvers, and the damage output of those, I'd even say that the melee fighters equal casters in damage output short-term, and beat them soundly the more combat time one has per day.

Fixing it out of combat is not that hard either - making social skills matter just requires a few common sense stances on magic used in social situations (such as "charming the noble will get you treated the same way as attacking him once people notice - and people will notice, Charm person being common and known in D&D, and Detect Magic being even more common.").