podcast: 4th edition combat too long

[Jhaelen]

But they've taken roleplaying out of D&D. They've made a game where roleplaying actually hurts the game if you do it.

Hear, hear. Care to present some facts to support your opinion?

Personally, I think there's at least as much roleplaying in 4E as in any previous edition.

Proof me wrong

 

[sinecure]

Hear, hear. Care to present some facts to support your opinion?

Personally, I think there's at least as much roleplaying in 4E as in any previous edition.

Proof me wrong

You watched the video right? Is that how much your players roleplay? That's a minis game.

I've pointed out before how incredibly obstructive 4E is to thinking in character. Most of what the players do is codified. And what is codified has almost no relation to what happens in an imaginary world. It has to do with game system. You're never playing the world or your character. You're always playing the game system.

That is unless you stop playing the game system. Roleplay for awhile with virtually no rule assistance for the DM. And then go back to playing the system.

You can't possibly be saying that is how D&D has always been. Others have and it's bogus. It's belittling the game and only showing ignorance of what has come before to say otherwise. (so I know you won't)

But that is what 4E requires to play it.

 

[Imperialus]

In 30 years of gaming, I've only ever seen one person actually do that at a table (and he was the DM and acted more like Dave here) but then only sporadically. I've read a lot of posts here where people say "my group does that too", "mine too", "mine too", "mine too", but I don't really believe it.

I agree. My group typically plays the same way too. If inspiration strikes then we'll launch into a description that falls on varying points of the cool/ridiculous spectrum but by and large the creativity of our table talk amounts to. "I use tide of iron! 27, hit! I stab em in the spleen!" Typically inspiration will strike when we're bashing things half our level. If we're up against a serious challenge though, we get caught up in the mechanical aspect and forget about trying to be all fancy.

I think it's a fair assessment to say that a random batch of people from around the office with varying degrees of experience, thrown together just as the first print run of the offical rules hit the office, given mid level characters with abilities and powers they aren't familiar with and thrown against a challenge higher than their level conspired against them.

I think Wizards should have approached it as a marketing gimmick rather than a real game. First of all they should have gotten an established party together, then they should have stacked the deck in their favor. 90% of the time you couldn't actually tell what they were rolling so have the players and DM both fudge dice rolls left right and center to create an action packed battle. Let the PC's dominate the monsters, that'd perk perk the players up more, if nothing else. Keep a few low rolls in there for flavor but D&D is about killing monsters, not fleeing in terror from them. Dave should have made sure that his 'terrain' had an effect on the battle. As it was, those weird flaming channels just confused things. No one watching would have been the wiser, as long as they made it feel as though the PC's were being challenged.

Think of it as watching a Harlem Globetrotters game with less comedy. People like (liked?) them because they are about the show, and individual players doing cool stuff, not about playing a proper game of basketball. You wouldn't want to take it as far as they do though but the concept is sound. Make it look like a real game, but use it as an opportunity to show off the cool powers that everyone has, not a chance for a DM to grind the PC's into the ground.

 

[AllisterH]

Er, I thought the PvP podcast WAS the general market ad.

I mean, pretty much everyone on the net who would be interested in D&D knows about Penny arcade.

 

[Incenjucar]

I've pointed out before how incredibly obstructive 4E is to thinking in character.

Bwah?

In my last session, we had plenty of RP.

When people made attacks, they fleshed out exactly how they did it. I did the same with the monsters I threw at them. When the kobold minion hiding in the bushes was missed by a shuriken and a magic missile, he went *blink blink*

When the party intimidated the last remaining kobold into dropping to its knees and giving up, they used like three different methods before they figured out that it was a mute but literate kobold.

And then they had it answer their questions by having it write in the blood of its fallen lover.

Later the fighter yelled at the wizard for using him as the center of an AOE.

And this was all on MapTools, where tracking the conversation is an absolute headache because everyone types out of turn and you have to scroll up to catch things.

4E isn't hampering RP. I assure you this.

 

[sinecure]

Bwah?

In my last session, we had plenty of RP.

When people made attacks, they fleshed out exactly how they did it. I did the same with the monsters I threw at them. When the kobold minion hiding in the bushes was missed by a shuriken and a magic missile, he went *blink blink*

When the party intimidated the last remaining kobold into dropping to its knees and giving up, they used like three different methods before they figured out that it was a mute but literate kobold.

And then they had it answer their questions by having it write in the blood of its fallen lover.

Later the fighter yelled at the wizard for using him as the center of an AOE.

And this was all on MapTools, where tracking the conversation is an absolute headache because everyone types out of turn and you have to scroll up to catch things.

4E isn't hampering RP. I assure you this.

Sounds exactly like what I said. Play the system. Stop. Roleplay with virtually no rule assistance.

You're fortunate you have players who learned to roleplay in D&D from OOP books. Regardless of the current rules.

 

[Lorthanoth]

That sounds like the opposite of what you said... *confused*

The 4E PHB has more pages about "roleplaying" than the 3.5 PHB.

 

[AllisterH]

You know, we have actuallly have the books...

So, anyone willing to run a one-shot (OR I can get off my lazy butt ) but why don't one of us run the same scenario or another high level adventure.

Remember a couple weeks back when someone ran 5 30th level pcs versus the tarrasque? They stomped it into the ground pretty quickly.

So anyone up for a little scenario?

 

[Incenjucar]

Sounds exactly like what I said. Play the system. Stop. Roleplay with virtually no rule assistance.

You're fortunate you have players who learned to roleplay in D&D from OOP books. Regardless of the current rules.

They're call roleplayers. They exist regardless of edition or system. People RP without rules at all all the time. They were using the RULES and doing so WHILE roleplaying.

"Dude, you crit the kobold! Totally dead!"

"Sweet! 'My hammer comes down on the kobold's head, sending various parts of its face across the battlefield.'"

Etc.

You seem to be assuming that 4E has to be badwrongfun and then pretending everything fits your assumption.

 

[WarpZone]

Just my 2 cents here, but they also seemed to miss a lot in part 2 of that Penny Arcade audio podcast. (After Jim Darkmagic's early run of beginner's luck, that is.)

Maybe monsters are just hard to hit in this version of the game?

I mean, there's a difference between "the players keep rolling ones," and "the players need to roll a 17 to hit." Do we know which was the case here?