D&D General How would you redo 4e?

[Jacob Lewis]

That is really nice. Good job

Thanks! Still got a ways to go. I hope to start some Essentials OSR-style games that will attract new players to try 4e again.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sometimes I wonder why it's necessary to limit a player's ability to do "cool fun things" in the first place. Would it get boring to see a Fighter perform "Sweet Sword Strike" every combat? Every turn?

Does it really matter if a Wizard can throw out Magic Missile turn after turn?

Does the game really need to be balanced around "only able to fight X combat encounters per game day"? What does that actually accomplish, when it's been my experience the real limit on how far a party can progress is based on running out of real-world time for the session!

I mean, there's already a base mechanic for endurance, called "hit points". You run out of those, the game is probably over. So it seems like telling players that they have a "gun" full of "bullets" that can allow them to use "maximum effort" and you have to figure out how to spread out that ammunition over the course of a "game day" causes more problems with adventure design, since now there's this constant struggle to make sure the players don't get a chance to use more than one bullet per X encounters.

Because people thirty years ago got it in their heads that resource management is the fun part of the game where you pretend to be a little man who gets real angry and buzzsaws his way through a giant frog with his twin timber axes. And the game has been shackled by that ever since.

 

[braro]

Because people thirty years ago got it in their heads that resource management is the fun part of the game where you pretend to be a little man who gets real angry and buzzsaws his way through a giant frog with his twin timber axes. And the game has been shackled by that ever since.

This is coming from my specific playstyle, but - I like having some form of limited resources because it lets me make more decisions. If my best strategy is always available, then there is less problem solving. If I want to feel creative, I need there to be costs between things - a reason to do Thing A and not thing B. Having different resource costs can be one way to give this option.

The way D&D traditionally does the resourcing tends not to work well for me, but the AEDU method meant I had options to come up with tactics, no matter what class I played.

 

[James Gasik]

This is coming from my specific playstyle, but - I like having some form of limited resources because it lets me make more decisions. If my best strategy is always available, then there is less problem solving. If I want to feel creative, I need there to be costs between things - a reason to do Thing A and not thing B. Having different resource costs can be one way to give this option.

The way D&D traditionally does the resourcing tends not to work well for me, but the AEDU method meant I had options to come up with tactics, no matter what class I played.

I can see that, but let's say you had 6 different abilities that you could use whenever. Each has their own merits. You'd then be able to problem solve just fine, by figuring out what is the best tool for the job.

Of course, I immediately see the downside. I know some players who can barely manage doing the same thing turn after turn, lol. Decision paralysis is a thing.

 

[braro]

I can see that, but let's say you had 6 different abilities that you could use whenever. Each has their own merits. You'd then be able to problem solve just fine, by figuring out what is the best tool for the job.

Of course, I immediately see the downside. I know some players who can barely manage doing the same thing turn after turn, lol. Decision paralysis is a thing.

I'd go one step further and draw a distinction between figuring out the most optimal response to a situation, and making the decision to commit to that optimal response knowing that it may cost me an optimal response later. Both can scratch the itch, and in different ways, but I think there is a depth of play in knowing that "If I play this card, I won't have it later - so is now the time to use the Mega Missile, or is a normal missile sufficient?"

In my home brew I have been playing with the idea of resource tokens that you get per round (Hello Triangle Strategy!), where every round you get a new "Focus Token" and your abilities cost Focus Tokens. So in the fight, you are deciding do I cache my token and use a less effective ability and save up for a 3 Token move, or do I funnel that in to moderate ability?

Those types of decisions can be exciting and allow for expression. But to your point - I have players who play Paladins and Rangers and only use the spells to teleport or heal, because those are obvious decisions and they would rather use the old faithful basic attack. So it is a case of different strokes for different folks.

 

[Pedantic]

I'd go one step further and draw a distinction between figuring out the most optimal response to a situation, and making the decision to commit to that optimal response knowing that it may cost me an optimal response later. Both can scratch the itch, and in different ways, but I think there is a depth of play in knowing that "If I play this card, I won't have it later - so is now the time to use the Mega Missile, or is a normal missile sufficient?"

In my home brew I have been playing with the idea of resource tokens that you get per round (Hello Triangle Strategy!), where every round you get a new "Focus Token" and your abilities cost Focus Tokens. So in the fight, you are deciding do I cache my token and use a less effective ability and save up for a 3 Token move, or do I funnel that in to moderate ability?

Those types of decisions can be exciting and allow for expression. But to your point - I have players who play Paladins and Rangers and only use the spells to teleport or heal, because those are obvious decisions and they would rather use the old faithful basic attack. So it is a case of different strokes for different folks.

There's also a fun second order question there around strategic positioning, where you try to determine what kind of decisions you'll be making on your next action as a result of your current choice. Will spending a resource in this moment increase or decrease your optionality in the future?

I do find the "but what about the casual player" refrain pretty frustratingly ubiquitous when it comes to TTRPG rules. I don't invite all of my friends to play every board game, and I don't expect every game to satisfy all of them. I'd rather the design do...whatever it is the design is trying to do, and we can put it on the players to determine whether they want that thing or not.

I've gotten together with the same 3-4ish people to play train games for the last two years and we just don't invite people who don't want to think about hostile takeovers and dividend payouts for 5 hours on their weekends. I think it's quite reasonable to bring that same energy to TTRPGs, and just not invite the person who doesn't want to assess the tactical choices available to their fighter, if that's what the game is trying to do.

 

[James Gasik]

I'd go one step further and draw a distinction between figuring out the most optimal response to a situation, and making the decision to commit to that optimal response knowing that it may cost me an optimal response later. Both can scratch the itch, and in different ways, but I think there is a depth of play in knowing that "If I play this card, I won't have it later - so is now the time to use the Mega Missile, or is a normal missile sufficient?"

In my home brew I have been playing with the idea of resource tokens that you get per round (Hello Triangle Strategy!), where every round you get a new "Focus Token" and your abilities cost Focus Tokens. So in the fight, you are deciding do I cache my token and use a less effective ability and save up for a 3 Token move, or do I funnel that in to moderate ability?

Those types of decisions can be exciting and allow for expression. But to your point - I have players who play Paladins and Rangers and only use the spells to teleport or heal, because those are obvious decisions and they would rather use the old faithful basic attack. So it is a case of different strokes for different folks.

Adventures in Rokugan uses a similar system for their Bushi class, it's looks like a lot of fun.

 

[James Gasik]

There's also a fun second order question there around strategic positioning, where you try to determine what kind of decisions you'll be making on your next action as a result of your current choice. Will spending a resource in this moment increase or decrease your optionality in the future?

I do find the "but what about the casual player" refrain pretty frustratingly ubiquitous when it comes to TTRPG rules. I don't invite all of my friends to play every board game, and I don't expect every game to satisfy all of them. I'd rather the design do...whatever it is the design is trying to do, and we can put it on the players to determine whether they want that thing or not.

I've gotten together with the same 3-4ish people to play train games for the last two years and we just don't invite people who don't want to think about hostile takeovers and dividend payouts for 5 hours on their weekends. I think it's quite reasonable to bring that same energy to TTRPGs, and just not invite the person who doesn't want to assess the tactical choices available to their fighter, if that's what the game is trying to do.

Unfortunately, D&D is the "big tent" game, so WotC can claim the largest possible market share. So that means even if we don't "think of the casuals", you can bet they will.

 

[Voadam]

I do find the "but what about the casual player" refrain pretty frustratingly ubiquitous when it comes to TTRPG rules. I don't invite all of my friends to play every board game, and I don't expect every game to satisfy all of them. I'd rather the design do...whatever it is the design is trying to do, and we can put it on the players to determine whether they want that thing or not.

I've gotten together with the same 3-4ish people to play train games for the last two years and we just don't invite people who don't want to think about hostile takeovers and dividend payouts for 5 hours on their weekends. I think it's quite reasonable to bring that same energy to TTRPGs, and just not invite the person who doesn't want to assess the tactical choices available to their fighter, if that's what the game is trying to do.

I find that D&D can be pretty good at accommodating multiple play styles in the same party. I have often seen people in the same long time group who focus on different things, using D&D as an opportunity to roll dice and blow off steam without thinking too hard, getting really into first person characterization roleplay, fiddly tactical combat, resource management tracking, people who never speak in character, people who are along for the story, people who want to drive the story, people who are along for social time with their friends, etc.

I like how 5e's PH fighter subclasses allow different resource management models to match different preferences, champion is mechanically simple with no added resource management, battlemaster adds a pool of superiority dice, and eldritch knight adds slot spellcasting, and they are all cool mechanically viable fairly well balanced options.

4e did this a bit with adding essentials classes who were more at will and encounter focused but still fairly balanced against the original AEDU paradigm.

Some players really like timing out when to use their dailies. Some just want to swing their sword and blast their spells and go full throttle all the time. When they can be in the same party and have it work out well I think that is ideal.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I do find the "but what about the casual player" refrain pretty frustratingly ubiquitous when it comes to TTRPG rules.

I find it's less the fault of casual players and more about the disrespect the culture has for causals an newbies.

People say newbies don't have the smarts to operate a Barbarian, so fighters have to be boring and casuals can't handle abilities, but then turn around and make DMing a Rorschach test.