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[Poll] Do You Like The Direction D&DN Is Heading In?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6081812" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>[MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION], [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] does have a posting history here of repeated characterisations of 4e as a combat-centred tactical skirmish game. It is very much in the same vein as Justin Alexander's "tactical skirmish linked by freeform roleplaying" in his notorious "dissociated mechanics" blog.</p><p></p><p>I tend to share [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s frustration with those posts, because each one is always back to the start, as if no one ever posted expaining how 4e is actually being played by those who play it and post about it on these boards. That frustration is exacerbated by Derren's tendency to talk as if his(?) conception of 4e actually captures how it is played, which means that those posts tend to be very dismissive of the games of posters who have replied to him actually expaining how they play the game.</p><p></p><p>As for presentation of 4e, it was obvious to me before 4e was even released (from prerelease blogs etc) that 4e was going to be a scene-focused version of D&D with the high degree of metagame necessary to run that sort of game. I agree that the core 3 books woudn't have made it easy for someone not familiar with that approach to work out how to do it; and there were at least two other serious issues two: a failure to clarify how objective DCs (used in combat resolution, and some skills associated with combat like Athletics to jump) related to metagamed DCs (which are crucial to skill challenges and p 42); and a failure to clarify how keywords are central to leveraging fictional positioning via powers (which comes out expressly only in the DMG discussion of damaging objects).</p><p></p><p>Given these flaws of presentation, I can see how some players not working out what was going on might collapse the game into a skirmish engine with skirmishes linked by freeform roleplaying. But given, for instance, that the PHB itself calls out the centrality of non-combat encounters to the game in multiple places, and talks about using attack-powers in those encounters, there is basically no justification for thinking that this is what the designers actually had in mind.</p><p></p><p>And once you put in the discussion of player-designed quests (in PHB and DMG), of wish lists for items (in DMG), of "say yes" (in DMG), etc, there is no justificaiton for thinking that the designers intended the game to be played as a GM-force tactical-skirmish railroad.</p><p></p><p>TL;DR: it's reasonable to not have worked out what all that non-combat, player-driven, indie-influenced stuff was for, given it didn't explain itself very well; but in my view it's not reasonable to therefore talk about the game's design and purposes as if none of that stuff was even there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6081812, member: 42582"] [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION], [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] does have a posting history here of repeated characterisations of 4e as a combat-centred tactical skirmish game. It is very much in the same vein as Justin Alexander's "tactical skirmish linked by freeform roleplaying" in his notorious "dissociated mechanics" blog. I tend to share [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s frustration with those posts, because each one is always back to the start, as if no one ever posted expaining how 4e is actually being played by those who play it and post about it on these boards. That frustration is exacerbated by Derren's tendency to talk as if his(?) conception of 4e actually captures how it is played, which means that those posts tend to be very dismissive of the games of posters who have replied to him actually expaining how they play the game. As for presentation of 4e, it was obvious to me before 4e was even released (from prerelease blogs etc) that 4e was going to be a scene-focused version of D&D with the high degree of metagame necessary to run that sort of game. I agree that the core 3 books woudn't have made it easy for someone not familiar with that approach to work out how to do it; and there were at least two other serious issues two: a failure to clarify how objective DCs (used in combat resolution, and some skills associated with combat like Athletics to jump) related to metagamed DCs (which are crucial to skill challenges and p 42); and a failure to clarify how keywords are central to leveraging fictional positioning via powers (which comes out expressly only in the DMG discussion of damaging objects). Given these flaws of presentation, I can see how some players not working out what was going on might collapse the game into a skirmish engine with skirmishes linked by freeform roleplaying. But given, for instance, that the PHB itself calls out the centrality of non-combat encounters to the game in multiple places, and talks about using attack-powers in those encounters, there is basically no justification for thinking that this is what the designers actually had in mind. And once you put in the discussion of player-designed quests (in PHB and DMG), of wish lists for items (in DMG), of "say yes" (in DMG), etc, there is no justificaiton for thinking that the designers intended the game to be played as a GM-force tactical-skirmish railroad. TL;DR: it's reasonable to not have worked out what all that non-combat, player-driven, indie-influenced stuff was for, given it didn't explain itself very well; but in my view it's not reasonable to therefore talk about the game's design and purposes as if none of that stuff was even there. [/QUOTE]
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