How do you envision the game?

[FulfilledDeer]

Hey everyone.....new here. I'm not 100% sure how I stumbled on this forum, but I'm happy I did. I have just started getting in to D&D (well, I played once like 8 years ago, but I barely remember that), but only with immediate friends who are as new as I am. There's a game shop (and coffee place I believe) near me called Enchanted Grounds that runs some stuff, but I haven't mustered up the courage yet.

Anyway, since we're new and I don't have any template to compare ourselves to, I was sort of wondering how people imagined the game in terms of the mechanics meshing with the story. ...that sounds a bit wrong. I mean....do you kind of coalesce everything that happens on a round by round basis into a narrative or is it turn based by its very nature?

My brother and I used to play a D&D type of thing, but purely verbally and no rules or anything. One person was the GM and made everything up and the other was the player. It was fun, especially since you could go back and forth quickly without really breaking the flow of the action: "The goblin pulls out his twisted sword and raises it over his head for a killing blow" - "I sweep my legs under him to knock him off his feet" - "too late! he manages to pierce your arm as he stumbles to the floor" and so on. Basically everything by GM fiat. Which was cool as long as he was in a good mood. Most of the time it worked out. But it allowed so much freedom to do anything and to take the game anywhere that we were never bored. I remember near entire days playing this game. Anyway, the whole thing was so....linear in my mind. Like a movie. It seamlessly played out as a story so that if my mind were connected to some kind of screen or something, people could watch and be entertained. That's the narrative thing I mention above.

So what I'm basically asking is do you take the turn based nature of the game, and reconstruct it in your mind to be the above kind of thing, or do you just embrace the turns of the game? Thing like Final Fantasy just embrace it. It seems odd that there's a lot of standing around and nothing happening in FF, but it makes it no less fun. An even better example, and perhaps nearly perfect would the the videogame Gladius (which I don't suspect many people have played but they should). What happened on screen was nearly exactly what happens in a game - turn based with movement and attack, certain amounts of each every turn, magic and potions taking up either an attack or movement or something, etc. It is an amazing game, but clearly not....cinematic in terms of the action.

Anyway, I don't know if this is a stupid question or not, but I figured I would ask.

For the record, we actually played a 4e adventure with 3.5e rules. We didn't figure it out until we asked why the DM was taking so long to deal with things....the answering being that everything had to be converted on the fly.

 

[S'mon]

I envision the battles as taking place in real-time, but the characters aren't constantly acting, they have their action-reaction cycle (or Boyd's OODA Observe Orient Decide Act loop) which AIR is said to be around 3-5 seconds for a single soldier, similar to the 6-second combat round. So characters are spending some time static observing what is going on & deciding what to do; their actions are not fully simultaneous - the in-world reality is somewhere between simultaneous and fully turn-based.

Also in large battles I take it that rounds are somewhat longer than 6 seconds as the OODA loop will take longer in a more complex environment; up to around 18 seconds when there are hundreds of combatants. Conversely in a 1-1 dual the rounds will only be 2-3 seconds.

 

[Neubert]

I think of 4e as being two games in one.
In my mind combats are separate from the rest of the game. I still imagine the action, but roleplaying takes a backseat during combat and it becomes more of a tactical board game. It takes a little more interpretation to turn the mechanics into narrative, I think, since the 4e rules have become more abstract, so knocking a Gelatinous Cube prone may be translated into knocking it "off balance" (make it wobble?) or something similar.

 

[Pentius]

I envision the battles as taking place in real-time, but the characters aren't constantly acting, they have their action-reaction cycle (or Boyd's OODA Observe Orient Decide Act loop) which AIR is said to be around 3-5 seconds for a single soldier, similar to the 6-second combat round. So characters are spending some time static observing what is going on & deciding what to do; their actions are not fully simultaneous - the in-world reality is somewhere between simultaneous and fully turn-based.

Also in large battles I take it that rounds are somewhat longer than 6 seconds as the OODA loop will take longer in a more complex environment; up to around 18 seconds when there are hundreds of combatants. Conversely in a 1-1 dual the rounds will only be 2-3 seconds.

Basically this, but with a larger dose of glossing over the fine details.

 

[jbear]

I'm really trying to move away from the bubble of 'the encounter' which tends to seperate combat from the narrative flow in 4e. But this is after nearly 3 years of experience with the system.

The last few sessions have been going through am AD&D Ravenloft module that i have adapted into my campaign which saw the PCs hunting for clues throughout a house infested with devious undead. Events rolled into each other quite naturally based on PC actions. There was no specific set encounter with a calculated XP difficulty set as such tied to a delineated specific area. And I think it worked really well. There were just events that could be triggered depending on what the PCs did.

Now the PCs have reached the climax of the heroic tier (lvl 10 going on lvl 11 about to face the major villain!) and I have mapped the entire base city to scale, the second to last final battle taking place literally all over the city as they search for the whereabouts of the Big Bad Gal. The PCs are aware of numerous 'Goals' they can achieve in different areas that will move them closer to their final goal and that these achievements gain them the benefit of a short rest, as the situation makes taking a five minute breather near impossible. My idea is to have the action remain constant as opposed to breaking it down to encounter 1, 2, 3 and 4 and narrating the bits in between. Even between the battles at each major 'goal location' the action continues, as a malevelous storm that seems hell bent on electrocuting the PCs, rages above them firing its bolts at them causing buildings to collapse or catch fire. The entire city population has turned against them, crazed lynch mob swarms appearing at a constant stream lead by transposed and malevelous undead creatures following their demon mistresses bidding to destroy the PCs. Meanwhile the city is being drawn into the Shadowfell by the storm causing the city itself to come to life and turn on the PCs; the streets themselves standing and becoming dangerous golems, or burning buildings or even the city walls and terrible beast from the Shadowfell pass through and begin to hunt them, drawn by the evil artifact in their backpack, as the PCs try and near their goal. For this to happen as one continuous event i need to play with the rules a bit and set my own standards so the PCs have a chance of victory, and so the action flows as its meant to. It's a bit of an experiment, we'll see how it goes. But the great thing about 4e is the mechanics are slick and solid and they can total be tinkered with very very easily to achieve the desired effect.

But getting away from "it's your turn, now it's my turn" is near impossible. There is a slow down in the narrative, unfortunately. I imagine the action going into 'super-slow mo'; it's nearly simultaneous but a fraction of a second decides who strikes first. Combat is complex, far more so than the narrative style you describe above. It needs a clear resolution system for it to work, and that means taking turns.

But it doesn't have to take away from the cinematic nature of the game. 4e is very cinematic. I empower my players evenmore along these lines allowing them to improvise heavily with their powers, which is encouraged in the DMG.

So, my advice. Learn and master the rules. They are a solid base to stand on. Then make them your own to achieve the kind of game you enjoy playing. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. As long as you learn from them and are having fun, then you're doingit the right way!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

So what I'm basically asking is do you take the turn based nature of the game, and reconstruct it in your mind to be the above kind of thing, or do you just embrace the turns of the game?

I mostly just embrace the turns. I do like to describe dramatic parts of a fight, like a villain's opening salvo, and I like players to describe how they kill big villains, but I don't force it. For most players, the rules of combat are exciting enough without overdoing the narrative.

 

[shamsael]

Generally, my group will pause the narrative at the start of combat, play through the combat round-by-round, then when the combat ends, go back and redescribe the combat as it fits into the narrative, then continue on with the story.

 

[Incenjucar]

It's basically a stuttering movie with lots of closeups for me, like a silent film. If an action involves a creature I control (whether a PC or, when I DM, a monster), I'll always throw in some description to my action, sometimes using physical actions or shorthand catch phrases - my invoker of love literally uses a Heart Beam from his palm when he uses Mantle of the Infidel, so when I use it I just gesture with my hand and say HEART! and everyone knows what's going on without me getting into details. When I DM, if I can't get a player to describe things themselves, I'll throw in a detail for them, such as when a polearm was used to immobilize a skeleton - I said that the shaft was thrust through the ribcage and into the ground, rather than "Okay he is immobilized."

 

[Dragon Sin-Camealot]

Since you want a personal opinion. I take the more realist side of it. I know it's a game with rules, people, and certain boundaries. I have posed the question if it could underscore your imagination.

Individuals have told me it's fun. I can not vouch for everyone nor try to place one idea above another.

Besides the facts it depends on your ability to imagine and believe in the game. You might have heard that if a song works or the ideas works we'll just know. We might see how popular it gets.

 

[FulfilledDeer]

Real life caused me to stay away for a while. But thanks for all the answers! I really like that idea of super slow mo....it combines both approaches nicely I think. I'm actually going to be playing my first fully 4e game this Wednesday. I'm pretty excited. Maybe after I'll have a few thoughts about how it works with 4e.