The Reduction of Uncertainty

[Raduin711]

Chaos favors the underdog. Because most games assume that the players are going to win it out in the end, the monsters and the NPCs are the underdogs. The more random and uncertain things are, the more likely that the players are going to die to some bad die rolls.

While I would agree with Lanefan that if things become too certain then the game is no longer fun, I would also say that if the game becomes too chancey, or "swingy" as the developers have been putting it recently, then the game becomes a drag.

From my own personal experience, I have been dragged down by swingy combats more often than certain ones.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

The corollary to this is speed of play - uncertainty slows things down, so we'd better get all that messy uncertainty out of the way, hadn't we? An example in another thread talks about a DM handwaving a combat between a halfway-powerful party and some street toughs; the DM says something like "There's a battle, you win easily"; the players respond "OK, we beat 'em up but let them live", and the DM carries on with the game. The problems here are numerous:

1. Who's to say that if the combat was run those street toughs would do some serious harm to someone, or even get lucky and kill a PC?

2. Once this precedent is set, as soon as the DM says "No, we'd better play out this one" the players know there's more to it than meets the eye and will react accordingly.

3. On a more general note, speeding things up and reducing uncertainty also reduces the ability of both the players and DM to hit the curveball...to react accordingly when things fail to go to plan. Example: if a high-level adventure is based around returning the Sword of Mighty Swordiness to its rightful owner, but halfway there the guy carrying it eats a fireball in what would otherwise be a pushover encounter and the Sword of Mighty Swordiness becomes the Sword of Mighty Meltiness...that's a curve thrown at the game that wouldn't happen had that seemingly-trivial encounter been handwaved.The day my games get to the point I can predict the results of any given situation is the day I stop playing.

Lanefan

Personally, I think of bigger import here is the question: "Is this fight important to the overall story?" If it's not, then why not handwave it? Why spend 15, 20, 30 minutes or more on what is, essentially, a throwaway, unimportant encounter when that time can be spent advancing the main story. Why not relegate it to a background thing, which also has the effect of possibly becoming a story later...

"Remember those thugs that accosted you in Sharn and you beat them so easily when looking for the Sword of Mighty Swordiness? Seems their leader has put out an assassination contract on you now."

 

[Hussar]

Personally, I think of bigger import here is the question: "Is this fight important to the overall story?" If it's not, then why not handwave it? Why spend 15, 20, 30 minutes or more on what is, essentially, a throwaway, unimportant encounter when that time can be spent advancing the main story. Why not relegate it to a background thing, which also has the effect of possibly becoming a story later...

"Remember those thugs that accosted you in Sharn and you beat them so easily when looking for the Sword of Mighty Swordiness? Seems their leader has put out an assassination contract on you now."

The flip side to this is, if you are the DM, why are you wasting the table's time with unimportant throwaway encounters? If the encounter is meaningless, why have it in the game in the first place.

This appears to be something that they want to address really. Way back the dev's were talking about the idea of 3 easy fights and 1 hard fight being the standard in the 3e model. I think the DMing advice is going to look a lot more like, "Make every fight count" And I think that's a good thing.

Really, why ponce around with meaningless encounters. If the players look back at the last session and nothing leaps out as a gripping encounter, that's a failure by the DM. A completely forgettable encounter probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.

So, now you have the idea that "encounter" is a much more fluid concept. An encounter might be a series of chambers, each one with combatants, all of which are involved in the same fight. They might not be in the same room at the same time, but, it might just be all one encounter. Kind of like the old Bruce Lee movies where he moves through the building, kicking everyone's ass to get to the bad guy. Instead of that being a series of distinct encounters, that will all be a single encounter.

Which is where the idea of /encounter mechanics will become REALLY important. In 3e /encounter means you can use it pretty much every time you face a new opponent. In 4e, I think encounter will be a far more fluid concept, meaning that you may just not have your /encounter resources back as fast as you might like.

 

[FireLance]

Personally, I think of bigger import here is the question: "Is this fight important to the overall story?" If it's not, then why not handwave it? Why spend 15, 20, 30 minutes or more on what is, essentially, a throwaway, unimportant encounter when that time can be spent advancing the main story. Why not relegate it to a background thing, which also has the effect of possibly becoming a story later...

Well, in what can probably be described as the "attrition" model of gaming, a fight that is unimportant to the overall story can still drain resources from the party, whether it is hit points, spells, or charges from magic items, so that the PCs are not at full strength when they face the final encounter. And in the event that extreme bad luck causes significant injury or death to one of the PCs, then that encounter becomes important to the storyline.

It should be noted, however, that it is not a game style that is likely to be supported well by 4e, because PCs will be able to regain their per encounter abilities fairly easily. Depending on whether you favor the "attrition" model of gaming or not, this is either a negative or a positive development.

 

[Gryffyn]

Back in the AD&D Players Handbook, I believe there was a short essay on adventuring tactics which discussed how a party should approach a dungeon. One of the keys, if I remember correctly, was to avoid any combat that weren't necessary to achieving the party's goals that night. By use of cleverness, negotiation, or avoidance, a party should bypass such encounters to avoid wasting valuable resources like spells and hit points. This approach encouraged the DM to add more little encounters, just to weaken the party.

I don't think this approach will apply to 4e, which seems to have a completely different paradigm for character resource management. If most resources are available every encounter, there's much less reason to avoid the "minor" encounters, except maybe boredom. Therefore the DM would be better served by making each encounter meaningful.

(I have to admit, I think I prefer the AD&D style over the 4e one, since it rewards the thoughtful and canny player.)

 

[Reynard]

Personally, I think of bigger import here is the question: "Is this fight important to the overall story?" If it's not, then why not handwave it? Why spend 15, 20, 30 minutes or more on what is, essentially, a throwaway, unimportant encounter when that time can be spent advancing the main story. Why not relegate it to a background thing, which also has the effect of possibly becoming a story later...

"Remember those thugs that accosted you in Sharn and you beat them so easily when looking for the Sword of Mighty Swordiness? Seems their leader has put out an assassination contract on you now."

This argument presumes there is a story and that things aside from the player's actions can be important to it. i don't subscribe to this perspective and think gaming is more fun and more fulfilling without DM imposed stories.

 

[kennew142]

This argument presumes there is a story and that things aside from the player's actions can be important to it. i don't subscribe to this perspective and think gaming is more fun and more fulfilling without DM imposed stories.

Wow! I can't even begin to express how much I disagree with this statement. IMO, a campaign without a storyline is nothing but a series of encounters. The earliest published modules all contained a storyline (even if it were thin and two-dimensional).

In every session I run, I weave a minimum a three storylines together. The Alpha storyline is the story of the particular scenario (stopping the cultists from summoning the entelechy of entropy, or rescuing the kidnapped prince, etc...). The Beta storylines (usually multiples) advance the storylines of the individual PCs, playing on their character hooks, backgrounds, goals and past actions. The Gamma storylines do not actually involve the characters directly (two distant nations have gone to war, a new shadow eruption has occured in the Ombra mountains, someone has assassinated the Hurg of Luagsh, etc...). By braiding all of these elements together, the GM can make the campaign more than random events; he can breath life into it and make it relevant to the PCs. Sometimes, things in Beta or Gamma storylines move up to the Alpha line for a while. Many future events are foreshadowed in my campaigns in this manner.

However, this approach can be carried too far. No storyline should be written in a such a way that it impedes the actions of the PCs. Nor should a good GM use narrative power to undo the actions of the PCs. I played in a campaign once where the GM would create set-pieces in which our characters were destined to fail, or in which NPCs came in at the last minute to steal the scene. This way too lies madness.

All of the above is JMO, of course. Oh yeah, this is a 4e forum. Let me add:

I believe (with no real justification) that the advent of 4e will help/hinder my gaming in this respect.

 

[HP Dreadnought]

Personally, I think of bigger import here is the question: "Is this fight important to the overall story?" If it's not, then why not handwave it? Why spend 15, 20, 30 minutes or more on what is, essentially, a throwaway, unimportant encounter when that time can be spent advancing the main story.

Because sometimes players just like to bash a few monsters!

I disagree with the idea that anything not pertinent to the story should be eliminated or relegated to background status.

The purpose of the game is to have FUN. Everything else - including any DM devised plotlines - takes a back seat to that goal.

To the extent that something detracts from or doesn't support a fun game, THEN it should be eliminated or handwaved.

Maybe that means random encounters are dispensed with. Maybe that means storylines are curtailed. That's up to the individual group. . . but I strongly reject this "storyline is king" paradigm. The storyline is only one way of introducing more fun into the game. That is all.

 

[Kurotowa]

There's an important distinction that has to be made here, between general uncertainty and dice uncertainty. General uncertainty is when one side lacks an overwhelming advantage over the other and the result of the contest is in doubt. Dice uncertainty is when the random result of the dice has a major impact on the result of the contest.

From the look of things, 4e will be working to reduce the dice uncertainty, and IMO that's a good thing. It means less worries about freak crits or hot/cold streaks of dice mojo. Instead the combat will turn on the choices and actions of the players. When you're in a tight spot do you pull back and hit your Second Wind, or do you pop a daily power and try to finish the fight here and now? Should your defender move right and help the rogue get flanking, or move left and give better cover to the mages? Do you rush the enemy archers to break their formation, or duck behind cover and try to draw them closer in first?

That's player empowerment, is what it is. If you die it's not because it orc got a lucky crit, but because you messed up and make a bad choice. If you win it's not because your dice were hot, but because your party worked together and dominated your foes. I'm all for that.

 

[Keenath]

There's an important distinction that has to be made here, between general uncertainty and dice uncertainty. General uncertainty is when one side lacks an overwhelming advantage over the other and the result of the contest is in doubt. Dice uncertainty is when the random result of the dice has a major impact on the result of the contest.

From the look of things, 4e will be working to reduce the dice uncertainty, and IMO that's a good thing. It means less worries about freak crits or hot/cold streaks of dice mojo. Instead the combat will turn on the choices and actions of the players...

That's player empowerment, is what it is. If you die it's not because it orc got a lucky crit, but because you messed up and make a bad choice. If you win it's not because your dice were hot, but because your party worked together and dominated your foes. I'm all for that.

I totally agree with everything you said.

I don't want to remove dice from the game -- but as was previously mentioned, they're not really reducing the uncertainty so much as evening it out across all levels. Really, by reducing the "solo monster" thing to monsters that are built to be solo, you see more of an interesting back and forth based on dice rolls. None of this garbage about the Paladin being the only one who can hit and the Wizard hurling death spells in the desperate hope for a low saving throw.

In any case, the philosophy is moving away from lots of little encounters to a smaller number of complex, populated encounters, which means you'll have more *tactical* uncertainty -- environmental hazards, reinforcements, etc -- while being at least a little more certain that you can hit your enemy and they can hit you.