Game Fundamentals - The Illusion of Accomplishment

[Celebrim]

I was discussing tactics with a young gamer of about fourteen (he had a CCG background and was trying out a miniatures wargame, 25mm figs on an open tabletop) at a convention recently who had the same problem, in that if a game didn't have the tactics spelled out as a mechanical option he was confused by the game. That's one of the areas where I think 4E shows some strength, in spelling things out for players who might not be as quick to develop tactics on their own.

It's very simple at almost any level of the game to be given a set of cards with your character and be able to thumb through them or lay them out and just point to the option that gives you to combination of damage and movement that suits a given situation. The "powers" system parcels tactics into focused and digestable units to avoid confusion during play.

I certainly don't disagree that 4e has strived hard (and with a measure of success) at making tactical combat the centerpeice of its gameplay. I also agree that 4e achieved some success in its goal of being more approachable for a novice. But, yeah, this approach to what is meant by 'tactics' isn't out of wargaming. If you look at a game like De Bellis Antiquitatis or any of its iterations, which I think can be taken as a traditional tactical wargame, the playing peices don't have arrays of different powers.

If you look at war itself, you basic infantryman's tactics devolve down to move somewhere (or not) and shoot at something (or not). At a stretch you might have 'throw a grenade' as an encounter power, but tactics are built out of interactions with the terrain and with the opposing force - not out of combinations of choices between powers.

If you look at sports that are very tactical like basketball, football, rugby and soccer, tactics are built up out of very limited repertoires of legal moves. They are primarily about how players move relative to each other to achieve local concentration of force through surprise and deception.

And yeah, I agree that 4e has had some success at achieving its goal of making the game more accessible to novices.

I also can't help but notice that the conversation is veering toward, "4e is a good gaming system and hears why" I don't even at this point remember how we got off on a discussion of what was meant by tactics (I fuzzily remember it having something to do with people advancing the claim that 4e is much more fun than that boring old game 1e), but all I was trying to say down this thread was that there are aspects of how each D&D system plays out at a tactical level that I like and I sometimes wish I could combine the best parts of each in a way that didn't result in an unplayably complicated game.

 

[Garthanos]

We got in to it because the claim that game defined choices are meaningless is central to the idea that the new designs are catering to simple easy wins ... But if the choices are frequently significant and required by newer designs and force longer spans of time between "pings" then your core theorem washes out like smelly rain water.

 

[Mark]

I certainly don't disagree that 4e has strived hard (and with a measure of success) at making tactical combat the centerpeice of its gameplay. I also agree that 4e achieved some success in its goal of being more approachable for a novice. But, yeah, this approach to what is meant by 'tactics' isn't out of wargaming. If you look at a game like De Bellis Antiquitatis or any of its iterations, which I think can be taken as a traditional tactical wargame, the playing peices don't have arrays of different powers.

If you look at war itself, you basic infantryman's tactics devolve down to move somewhere (or not) and shoot at something (or not). At a stretch you might have 'throw a grenade' as an encounter power, but tactics are built out of interactions with the terrain and with the opposing force - not out of combinations of choices between powers.

DBA, DBM, HotTs, etc. have been on my lists for years and add to that many others including the relatively new Field of Glory (played about a week ago at the Little Wars convention). You've echoed my point about it being less tactically restrictive to play one of these games. Granted, all troop typs have limitations and places where they excel, but the tactical way in which they are deployed and react on the battlefield are very open. For, perhaps, a better (closer?) analogy you might look toward the one-to-one scaled wargames of years ago like SPI's Patrol (or even Sniper, the Patrol predecessor). It came on the scene in the same year as D&D, 1974, and I imagine a lot of wargamers who were also trying out the new RPG also played games like this and utilized tactics in the same manner. If you are not familiar, read the description with the breakdown of turns and hexes and options, then let me know what you think.

If you look at sports that are very tactical like basketball, football, rugby and soccer, tactics are built up out of very limited repertoires of legal moves. They are primarily about how players move relative to each other to achieve local concentration of force through surprise and deception.

Hockey was my primary sport groing up and I just went to the Wolves (AHL) game Friday. Great game, even though they lost.

 

[Celebrim]

What is egoistic about looking for an RPG that doesn't require much training and doesn't involve tedium?

I don't see alot to be gained by even trying to answer such a loaded question.

The resemblances I see are in respect of (i) a more-or-less coherent set of mechanics that, when played as the box tells you to, more-or-less delivers the game experience the box promises,

I could say the same about any prior edition of D&D, and in particular, 1e does a far better job I think than any edition of delivering the game experience described by the rule books if only because it gives some of the most direct and also evocative descriptions of how the game is to be played. Gygaxian prose has something going for it.

I also note you directly undermine this claim later in your post by talking about 4e's incoherence and 'tricky relationships'.

(ii) a game that relies quite heavily on fortune-in-the-middle mechanics (eg hit points, attack rolls, saving throws, skill challenges etc),

I'm not sure where you are going there, but FitM (at least without teeth) is in my opinion old school and uber-traditional. Virtually all classic mainstream RPGs use FitM in a loose form. Things like hit points, attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks have always been FitM and are typical features of older games. I consider it a much more typical mark of indie games that they feature more FatE or more FatB than traditional games. With AD&D since 1e, you generally get proposition ('I attack') -> Fortune -> Narrative resolution describing that attack in a way suitable to the fortune. For example, what in any edition does an attack roll or an attack doing 4 hit points of damage mean? The answer is obviously, you can't know outside of the circumstance. In 1e, 4 hit points of damage might be an attack that misses ('The giant hornet bashes you with its abdomen, but fortunately was unable to connect with its stinger' (saving throw vs. poison was made)), or one that leaves a scratch, or one that disembowels the target. This level of abstraction has always irritated simulationists (like my younger self) who want a more 'realistic' game (moving fortune nearer to the end) with more concrete relationships between propostion/stakes and ultimate result.

An example of a mechanic that might give FitM more teeth would be rerolls, but we had that in D20 modern. The 4e action point system actually moves the game further from FitM than some 3e variants (Modern, M&M, Unearthed Arcana (IIRC) etc.) because RAW you can't use them to modify fortune (in the middle), only to buy more actions (IIRC).

(iii) a game that separates details of narration from mechanical details in a way that differs quite markedly from traditional D&D or mainstream simulationist games but looks quite a bit like HeroQuest or The Dying Earth (this is also related to (ii) above),

If you are talking about what I think you are talking about, mechanics just working regardless of situation (requiring the ad hoc invention of narration), then these differ from traditional D&D by being more gamist, not by being more 'Indie'. I don't see the relationship between TDE rules and 4e you keep asserting. I'm not familiar enough with HeroQuest to judge, but from what I understand of it, HeroQuest is a nar game using flexible prose/keyword character creation, contested rolls and with fortune practically at the beginning - which doesn't at all remind me of 4e.

(iv) a game with non-traditional conflict resolution mechanics in the form of skill challenges,

The published skill challenge system is not non-traditional. It's merely formalized. As a the most simple example, there is nothing non-traditional about 'You can get 3 success in theivery to disarm the trap, or you can evade it, or you can bash it into rubble." Some of the homebrew versions of skill challenges I've seen (especially those that came out before the rules were released) are abit or alot more Forge-like in their mechanics, but the published version is just the extended version of a skill check.

(v) a game that has a defined endgame via epic destinies and destiny quests.

See the Immortals ruleset, for example. I don't see how this relates to Indie games as I understand the term.

I can't help but feel that when you say 4e has a relationship to Indie games, you mean, "4e the way I play it at my table has a relationship to Indie games".

 

[Piratecat]

Time to scale back the snippiness, folks. No more taking shots at one another.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see alot to be gained by even trying to answer such a loaded question.

Fair enough. But if you're not prepared to consider why some players find some aspects of traditional AD&D play tedious, then I don't think you're going to find it easy to understand the appeal of 4e to some of those same gamers.

I could say the same about any prior edition of D&D, and in particular, 1e does a far better job I think than any edition of delivering the game experience described by the rule books if only because it gives some of the most direct and also evocative descriptions of how the game is to be played.

It's hard to compare across games where I'm also comparing across so many years, but I don't agree with this. One example which comes up from time to time (I've seen both MerricB and Doug McCrae talk about it): the DMG time rules assume you're playing nearly every day, but no where is this spelled out.

I also note you directly undermine this claim later in your post by talking about 4e's incoherence and 'tricky relationships'.

Well, that's the meaning of "more-or-less" - you have to take the less with the more! But the real contrast isn't with 1st ed, it's with 2nd ed AD&D which provides (more-or-less) the 1e mechanics but promises a game more like Pendragon or Ars Magica. Or (more controversially, but in my opinion) '3E, which in its mechanics has trouble deciding whether its AD&D or Rolemaster.

I'm not sure where you are going there, but FitM (at least without teeth) is in my opinion old school and uber-traditional. Virtually all classic mainstream RPGs use FitM in a loose form.

D&D and T&T, yes. Traveller, RQ and RM, no - they're basically fortune at the end. Simulationism kills FitM.

If you are talking about what I think you are talking about, mechanics just working regardless of situation (requiring the ad hoc invention of narration), then these differ from traditional D&D by being more gamist, not by being more 'Indie'.

<snip>

I'm not familiar enough with HeroQuest to judge, but from what I understand of it, HeroQuest is a nar game using flexible prose/keyword character creation, contested rolls and with fortune practically at the beginning - which doesn't at all remind me of 4e.

The character creation of HQ is different from 4e. 4e has a sourcebook sales approach to flexibility! But HQ is not fortune at the beginning - it is FitM, in some ways resembling 4e skill challenges (with the direction of influence being from HQ to 4e). As described in the rulebook, the player states intention, the dice are rolled and then the GM narrates outcome.

I don't see the relationship between TDE rules and 4e you keep asserting.

FitM is one resemblance. The use of fixed lists of character abilities to nevertheless be rather expressive of the PC's role and personality is another. Ablative resources is another (healing surges in 4e), with a high degree of narrative flexibility as to how the ablation manifets itself in the gameworld. The existence of fairly robust and level-sensitive encounter building guidelines is another. The use of gameworld history and points of light is another.

I'm not claiming identity. Nothing in 4e realy resembles The Dying Earth's advancement mechanic, for example.

The published skill challenge system is not non-traditional. It's merely formalized.

I don't agree with this. For example, the notion that 3 successful checks - whatever the skill in question - transitions the encounter to a new stage, is not a traditional notion.

As a the most simple example, there is nothing non-traditional about 'You can get 3 success in theivery to disarm the trap, or you can evade it, or you can bash it into rubble."

This is true, but that is also the least interesting implementation of the skill challenge system that the game offers.

See the Immortals ruleset, for example.

I explained in my thread why 4e is different from this. The main difference, but not the only one, is player entitlement and narrative authority.

I don't see how this relates to Indie games as I understand the term.

The notion of the game having a defined "endgame" is something I associate with games like Nicotine Girls or My Life With Master. I don't of traditional games that have the same thing (ie a thematic resolution built into the game, as opposed to simply a mechanical limit beyond which the rules don't keep going).

I can't help but feel that when you say 4e has a relationship to Indie games, you mean, "4e the way I play it at my table has a relationship to Indie games".

Well, that may be true - ultimately, I can only speak for my own play experiences. But I still believe that I have the designers on my side on this one.

 

[pemerton]

That's one of the areas where I think 4E shows some strength, in spelling things out for players who might not be as quick to develop tactics on their own.

But to understand it's appeal to at least some players, including experienced RPGers, I think it's helpful to look beyond a conception of 4e as "trainer wheels" for something else, and see what sort of gameplay experience it offers on its own terms, and who might enjoy that. As I suggested upthread, maybe a M:tG player rather than a traditional wargamer. That's a different thing from AD&D, but is it a bad thing?

 

[amysrevenge]

the GM is obliged to deliver

Wanted to give XP for using "obliged" correctly when many would use "obligated" (ugh, it pains me to even type it out as an example), but haven't spread it around enough yet. lol

 

[Mark]

But to understand it's appeal to at least some players, including experienced RPGers, I think it's helpful to look beyond a conception of 4e as "trainer wheels" for something else, and see what sort of gameplay experience it offers on its own terms, and who might enjoy that. As I suggested upthread, maybe a M:tG player rather than a traditional wargamer. That's a different thing from AD&D, but is it a bad thing?

One, knock off the need to get everyone into a better or worse conversation. Two, if you read my post above regarding the young player, he came from a CCG background and was getting into wargaming. If you can't chill on needing everything to be ranked or qualified as fun or unfun, then you're going to want to cease quoting me.

Admin here. Frankly, you don't have any say as to whether or not someone quotes you. Please don't try to tell him whether he can or can't. It's fine to disagree with someone who quotes you, of course -- but that's a different issue. ~ PCat

 

[Fifth Element]

Wanted to give XP for using "obliged" correctly when many would use "obligated" (ugh, it pains me to even type it out as an example), but haven't spread it around enough yet. lol

Ooh...and then he goes and writes it's instead of its in the post directly above yours. Shame.