D&D 4E 4e With No Casters?

[hong]

I didn't know you were paying me to DM.

No, I'm paying you to be game designer.

In that case, spotlight time goes to the highest bidder. Ante up!

Players are the highest bidders. Ante up indeed!

Just can't wrap my head around it. So your party is, basically, a multi-headed entity that wanders the land without any individual connection to other beings?

It's a multi-headed entity that has the ability to separate into individual bits when players don't show up. As opposed to a multi-headed entity that separates into individual bits when players do show up.

You assume there's never any 'together time' or that someone's "solo" encounter doesn't suddenly have them calling a friend. In most games I'm in or run, there's an average of about 30% 'individual roleplaying time' and 70% 'group time',

With 6 players, that's 5% individual time, 25% dead time, and 70% group time. But 105% of statistics are made up. You can trust me, I'm a statistician.

 

[hong]

You've got it backwards. Going off on your own, deliberately excluding the other players from participating, is selfish. Being part of a group activity however is the total antithesis of 'me me me'. More like 'team team team'.

Sure, sometimes you want the lone wolf bit, for the sake of variety or plausibility, but I like to keep it to a minimum, I'm much more about the team play. The people I play with are pretty good about that. There's a definite awareness that excluding one or more players from the action is a Bad Thing, something to be avoided, out of a courtesy for the needs of others.

And of course, nothing about the design philosophy actually REQUIRES you to keep the group together at all costs. You want the rogue to confer with the guild boss? Do so. You want to have deep, meaningful conversations about crabs? Yep. Something about chocolate and peanut butter goes here.

 

[Lizard]

You've got it backwards. Going off on your own, deliberately excluding the other players from participating, is selfish. Being part of a group activity however is the total antithesis of 'me me me'. More like 'team team team'.

This is true if it's one player doing it, but if it's part of the group's social contract that "Everyone gets an NPC 'family' of friends, allies, and rivals, and plot threads which are theirs and theirs alone", then I disagree.

Trying to get back on-topic, this is very important in low-fantasy, city-based games, because cities are giant hives filled with NPCs. It's not possible to play Rootless Wanderers in a city-focused S&S game; you live somewhere, you buy your meals somewhere, you can't just stab anyone who annoys you and get away with it. You've got to live in the place, and it's going to have social structures bigger than you are, and each individual in your party is going to interact with different parts of it.

The richness of a game, over time, is the web of relationships and histories formed, with both friends and enemies. Looking back, we remember favorite NPCs, hated foes we finally got to take down, and strange twists of fate that make allies into enemies and sometimes vice-versa. To use a TV analogy, while any given episode of, say, Buffy is defined by what monster she kicks in the nads, the series as a whole is defined by the changing cast and diverse story arcs. A good game system needs to support both sides of the equation equally.

 

[scruffygrognard]

This isn't really a good thing. It's called the specialization problem. A character who is specialized finds no challenge in something that a non-specialized character can't even do.

This isn't balance. It's the opposite.

When a group contains only a single specialist in a particular area, any hazard in that area that is challenging to the specialist is utterly impossible for the other characters, leaving their players with nothing to do but sit and grow bored. Any hazard that would be challenging but possible for the other characters is trivially solved by the specialist, again leaving the non-specialist players with nothing to do.

"Let me scout ahead" is fine and all, and will remain, because you'll have a +10 to Stealth and they won't. But do you really want to be the only one who can swim down there? You have a battle, and suddenly you're all alone facing a bunch of sharks, and that's no good for you and no good for the party (who are still waiting for you to come back).

the SWSE system allows everyone to participate, while the really skilled guy still does much better than the others.

It may not be balanced but, from a storytelling perspective, makes perfect sense. Some characters should, by design, be MUCH better equipped to handle certain situations than others.

It encourages teamwork and clever use of spells (water breathing, freedom of movement, silence, etc... depending on the situation you laid out above) by an adventuring party.

 

[Cadfan]

It may not be balanced but, from a storytelling perspective, makes perfect sense. Some characters should, by design, be MUCH better equipped to handle certain situations than others.

It encourages teamwork and clever use of spells (water breathing, freedom of movement, silence, etc... depending on the situation you laid out above) by an adventuring party.

I consider the following scenario to be about the worst possible sort of teamwork available in the entire game:

Rogue: Ok, we need to climb this ledge so that we can ambush the orcs from behind. Who can climb besides me?
Fighter: Not me. Didn't put ranks in it.
Wizard: Not me.
Cleric: Nope.
Rogue: Alright, I'll climb up top with a rope, and lower it down. Then Fighter can climb up unarmored- that should be easy for a man of his strength. Once he's up there he can help haul the rest of you up. I know a few mountaineering knots that will let us attack you to the rope, and make this easy.
Cleric: What?
Fighter: Are you stupid or something?
Wizard: I pull out three scrolls of Spider Climb, and cast them on everyone except the rogue. He can already climb, he doesn't need one.
Cleric: I climb the ledge. Automatic success.
Fighter: Ditto.
Wizard: The same.
Rogue: Uh, ok... I climb the ledge as well. *rolls dice* I got a 12, so that's a climb check of 21. I make it 15 feet up the 60 foot ledge. *rolls dice* I got an 18, that makes 27, so that's another 15 feet. *rolls dice* Uh, I rolled a 2, so that's an 11... is that enough? Crap. I fall 30 feet... *rolls tumble check* I take 5 points of damage. I try again...
Fighter: This is stupid. I lower him a rope.

 

[hong]

Trying to get back on-topic, this is very important in low-fantasy, city-based games, because cities are giant hives filled with NPCs. It's not possible to play Rootless Wanderers in a city-focused S&S game; you live somewhere, you buy your meals somewhere, you can't just stab anyone who annoys you and get away with it.

That's why the DM should never play the people with green circles around their feet as annoying. Duh.

 

[Dragonblade]

I consider the following scenario to be about the worst possible sort of teamwork available in the entire game:

Rogue: Ok, we need to climb this ledge so that we can ambush the orcs from behind. Who can climb besides me?
Fighter: Not me. Didn't put ranks in it.
Wizard: Not me.
Cleric: Nope.
Rogue: Alright, I'll climb up top with a rope, and lower it down. Then Fighter can climb up unarmored- that should be easy for a man of his strength. Once he's up there he can help haul the rest of you up. I know a few mountaineering knots that will let us attack you to the rope, and make this easy.
Cleric: What?
Fighter: Are you stupid or something?
Wizard: I pull out three scrolls of Spider Climb, and cast them on everyone except the rogue. He can already climb, he doesn't need one.
Cleric: I climb the ledge. Automatic success.
Fighter: Ditto.
Wizard: The same.
Rogue: Uh, ok... I climb the ledge as well. *rolls dice* I got a 12, so that's a climb check of 21. I make it 15 feet up the 60 foot ledge. *rolls dice* I got an 18, that makes 27, so that's another 15 feet. *rolls dice* Uh, I rolled a 2, so that's an 11... is that enough? Crap. I fall 30 feet... *rolls tumble check* I take 5 points of damage. I try again...
Fighter: This is stupid. I lower him a rope.

Nice. I have played in that game before!

 

[AZRogue]

I agree with Lizard here, at least in part. I like giving the players a bit of time to explore their connections to the rest of the campaign world, outside of encounters, because I like the level of verisimilitude that is added. I don't think I do it as much as he does, maybe ten minutes here and there, but I wouldn't like it if that was taken away. Neither would my players.

But, I don't think that comes into play during encounters. During encounters--read combat or non-combat confrontations with an antagonist (situation/npc/monster/enviroment) opposing them--I want the whole group to be able to participate. Certain PCs will shine because they are better than others at certain tasks, so will get a greater focus during the action, but I don't like my players to not be able to take part in the action in some way. Barring splitting up the party for some reason, in which case i go by the tried and true method of making the groups take turns going out and having a snack while I run each one independent, which usually heightens tension.

 

[scruffygrognard]

I consider the following scenario to be about the worst possible sort of teamwork available in the entire game:

Rogue: Ok, we need to climb this ledge so that we can ambush the orcs from behind. Who can climb besides me?
Fighter: Not me. Didn't put ranks in it.
Wizard: Not me.
Cleric: Nope.
Rogue: Alright, I'll climb up top with a rope, and lower it down. Then Fighter can climb up unarmored- that should be easy for a man of his strength. Once he's up there he can help haul the rest of you up. I know a few mountaineering knots that will let us attack you to the rope, and make this easy.
Cleric: What?
Fighter: Are you stupid or something?
Wizard: I pull out three scrolls of Spider Climb, and cast them on everyone except the rogue. He can already climb, he doesn't need one.
Cleric: I climb the ledge. Automatic success.
Fighter: Ditto.
Wizard: The same.
Rogue: Uh, ok... I climb the ledge as well. *rolls dice* I got a 12, so that's a climb check of 21. I make it 15 feet up the 60 foot ledge. *rolls dice* I got an 18, that makes 27, so that's another 15 feet. *rolls dice* Uh, I rolled a 2, so that's an 11... is that enough? Crap. I fall 30 feet... *rolls tumble check* I take 5 points of damage. I try again...
Fighter: This is stupid. I lower him a rope.

In the above situation, the fighter would carry the heavy rope most of the time, while the rogue would take the rope, climb up the cliff first and lower it to the rest of the party. The rest of the party would "take 10" on their climb checks. Viola!


Still, I get where you are headed with your example but disagree with you implication that the entire party needs to be equipped with the skills needed for adventuring. I like when each character has his or her own niche. If two or more characters can work together, that's great too but it shouldn't be necessary for a successful party or for player gratification.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That's why the DM should never play the people with green circles around their feet as annoying. Duh.

Okay, so you played "The Witcher" the past few months...