Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[Manbearcat]

Indeed... but let's be fair. That was the hobby for a long time, whether you played D&D or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Runequest or Call of Cthulhu, Twilight 2000 or Aftermath, Bushido or GURPS, Vampire or Shadowrun. So you can bring decades of experience to 4e and find it resisting your efforts to run the game the way you've always done it.

I notice that people who had success with 4e usually understood and enjoyed the principles in games like Burning Wheel, FATE, powered by the Apocalypse, Mouse Guard, etc. So the way to get the best out of 4e was to have tastes and experiences far beyond D&D, and far beyond any mass market title..

So I'm going to bridge here from the theme of the thread to further examining what we've just discussed...and bring up your old "protagonism" thread.

So let's say that I'm a GM that expects to deploy Force or covert Illusionism throughout the course of play to (a) manufacture tension/excitement/climax (rather than them emerging organically through unForced play/systemization) and (b) funnel the fiction (or at least ensure the path of its wobble) toward preordained metaplot (or at least certain outcomes). This is the paradigm where the tension of GM-driven games vs player-(not character)protagonism occurs. Who is (primarily or exclusively) exerting the most agency/driving outcomes and through that, who is dictating the ultimate trajectory of play? If I'm a GM that expects to deploy Force and Illusionism, I want my players to "feel(z)" like they're in the driver's seat (or them + the synthesis of system-derived outcomes)...when in actuality, I'm the one doing the heavy lifting. Oftentimes, this sort of approach is a product of not trusting system (perhaps the systems they've run in the past have failed to consistently produce climax/tension/excitement). Unsurprisingly, those sorts of GMs almost always take the position that "system doesn't matter"! No kidding!

So then. How does 4e push back against me (and the "feelz" that are important to me)?

1) Transparency and exactitude in agenda/principles ("go to the action", "change the situation", "say yes...or roll the dice" when it comes to stunting, "failure is not an endpoint", and all the combat stuff such as "create/promote movement" and "interactive battlefields"). If you expect to exert Force to manufacture play outcomes, you do not want high-concept principles that bind/constrain/direct you toward a play premise.

2) Tight codification of play procedures, maths, obstacles and PC build components. In the same way that high-concept principles gets in the way of exerting my own low-concept agenda (I'll secretly do whatever the hell I want to make this story work!), precision in systemization does the same thing at the procedure level of play. It makes the covert deployment of Force (Illusionism) extremely obvious to the other participants at the table (betraying the ploy and potentially leading to unhappy players unless they're willing "co-conspirators" in the illusion).

3). Heavily systematized player authority. Author Stance and certainly Director Stance fundamentally built into the game's engine is no good. Certainly I feel authority is a zero sum game. So the more the players have authority/fiat power, the less I have! No bueno!

4) Precise encounter budgeting and resolution mechanics that just plain "work" (they produce the sought outcome of excitement/tension/climax without the need for GM intervention/subordination). Why is this a problem? Well, if I'm emotionally attached to my role as "deliverance of awesome by Force" and I feel that I skillfully do it (without the players being aware that their agency is being subverted), I probably suddenly feel a hit to my GM self-worth. So my very important, decades-honed skill is no longer necessary? Well that sucks! Screw that noise!

5) "System matters" and a different paradigm. If I'm used to circumventing a system's premise and procedures and running play by Force (whether it’s because I have to - the system is incoherent or utterly unclear/noncommittal - or because I want to), I don't want system to matter. I don't want to learn a new paradigm. I have my Force muscles and I want to flex them. Learning (what may amount to) a new trade is not what I signed up for!

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That about sum it up for GM Force-related ire toward 4e? Anything else?

 

[cavalier973]

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That about sum it up for GM Force-related ire toward 4e? Anything else?

Perhaps a glimpse of the "man behind the curtain"? "DMing" can seem like an esoteric and specialized skill. 4e is a game where, after learning the bare basics, anyone can be a reasonably effective DM.

Just a guess.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, to be fair I did say 'usually'



Yes, for sure. I have most of them on block!

I probably should do the same, but I hate not seeing half the thread I'm posting in.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Perhaps a glimpse of the "man behind the curtain"? "DMing" can seem like an esoteric and specialized skill. 4e is a game where, after learning the bare basics, anyone can be a reasonably effective DM.

Just a guess.

And it bums me out that so many old school DMs get grumpy about it, because the rules "just plain working" means I can take all those hard won skills, and push them even further because I have better tools to aid in my efforts. I don't need the tools to be good at the thing, but they do help take my thinging up an extra notch or two.

 

[Nagol]

I think that explains some people, but not all or even most.

No one in my group was into indie games before 4e, and it all worked fine for us. It fit how some of us had always played, and things like skill challenges made immediate sense to us. Skill challenges didn't work as well in practice because they go the probabilities wonky, more or less, but they were easy to fudge into working right until the revisions came out and fixed them.

A lot of the problem 4e had, IMO, was presentation.

And some people see player empowerment as blasphemy.

And I'm the opposite. I've GMed dozens of systems including My Life with Master and Strands of FATE. For D&D play I loathe Illusionism. And I still couldn't get behind 4e. The original presentation and ruleset is incoherent. It wants to be both a "cinematic" game without sacrificing the trappings and conceits of original play except where it eschews them. Some of the maths are terrible with simplifications that are unreasonable to me (hypotenuses, for example) or outright don't provide the experience advertised (skill challenges) . Both for cinematic play and for survival play, I have many other options that offer better consistency and convenience. After looking over the system carefully, it got dumped in my "no reason to run this" pile of RPG books.

 

[Manbearcat]

"DMing" can seem like an esoteric and specialized skill. 4e is a game where, after learning the bare basics, anyone can be a reasonably effective DM.

Absolutely. My guess is entry level GMing was at an all-time high in 4e.

[MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] , hexcrawl-serial world exploration stressing strategic (extra-encounter spanning) resource management, eschewing gonzo martial capacity, yet still with relative Fighter/Wizard parity. Does that describe (in pithy terms) what you are looking for?

I'm going to do another "why this GM would hate 4e" post. I can do one for that GM no problem.

 

[Nagol]

Absolutely. My guess is entry level GMing was at an all-time high in 4e.

[MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] , hexcrawl-serial world exploration stressing strategic (extra-encounter spanning) resource management, eschewing gonzo martial capacity, yet still with relative Fighter/Wizard parity. Does that describe (in pithy terms) what you are looking for?

I'm going to do another "why this GM would hate 4e" post. I can do one for that GM no problem.

For D&D play, pretty much.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Some of the maths are terrible with simplifications that are unreasonable to me (hypotenuses, for example) or outright don't provide the experience advertised (skill challenges)

Pi = 4 is either funny or appalling, yeah.

Skill Challenges improved dramatically, though barely began to realize anything like their potential, even at their best.

Absolutely. My guess is entry level GMing was at an all-time high in 4e.

IMX, successful entry-level DMing was downright unprecedented. But, I doubt there were as many people trying the game in 2008-12 let alone trying to DM it cold, as in 1979-87 (or 2014-present), just far fewer walking away mumbling 'never again.'

 

[Nagol]

Pi = 4 is either funny or appalling, yeah.

Skill Challenges improved dramatically, though barely began to realize anything like their potential, even at their best.

<snip>

I heard good things about DMG2 and later works aimed at the DM (Rules Cyclopedia maybe?), but I wasn't going to keep chasing a system that offered so little initially and frankly offered a style of game I enjoy in other genres where I already have favourite systems like TfOS, BESM, and Strands of FATE.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I heard good things about DMG2 and later works aimed at the DM (Rules Cyclopedia maybe?), but I wasn't going to keep chasing a system that offered so little initially and frankly offered a style of game I enjoy in other genres where I already have favourite systems like TfOS, BESM, and Strands of FATE.

One of 4e's biggest problems is that it was given a 24 month lead time from starting development to publication and they went right back to the drawing board 10 months in because they'd ended up with something genuinely terrible while releasing to time - meaning that the at-launch 4e was a good six months short on playtesting. (Another problem is that the best thing to do with Keep on the Shadowfell is simply drop an asteroid on the keep).