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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6035428" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>My own view, as I expressed upthread (post 51), is that you have not successfully isolated the relevant differences. In particular, your claim that "solving your problem without ever drawing you sword . . . was outside of the [4e] system" is not borne out either by the 4e rules text, or the way people on these boards post about their 4e play. I linked to some examples of play from my own game to illusrate the point.</p><p></p><p>And I don't think that talking about house rules is really apposite here. Skill challenges, the skill rules generally, quests, utility powers, rituals: these aren't house rules, they're core elements of 4e.</p><p></p><p>That's not to deny that there are differences. I itemised some in my own post. But the differences, in my view, have little or nothing to do with "quantitiative" resolution or "limits".</p><p></p><p>I personally don't have a strong sense of what people are doing with 3E, other than using it to run Paizo adventure paths.</p><p></p><p>But it seems that many RPGers object to game rules that are overt about the metagame. So they prefer a "natural armour bonus", calculated to be level-appropriate, to 4e's "metagame" setting of monster ACs, even though the only consequences of labelling the bonus a "natural armour" one are bad for the game: it creates needless confusion about what the number actually means ingame (if Plate +5 - the best armour mortal smiths can forge from the most powerful meteoric metals available - gives a +13 to AC, what the heck does a +30 "natural armour" bonus even mean?); and it motivates players to have their PCs seek out such bonuses for themselves, which (if successful) completely undoes the whole point of the bonus in the first place, which is to achieve a degree of metagame balance in the combat rules.</p><p></p><p>I'm very much the wrong person to try to sympathetically interpret this particular preference in game design. In my experience it seems to go along with a general assumption about the use of force by the GM, to keep "the story" and "the setting" on track, which is utterly contrary to my own preferences.</p><p></p><p>But for someone who has that sort of preference, I can see how 4e would be "objectionably different" from 3E. Conversely, for someone like me, who very much enjoys the traditional tropes of fantasy RPGing, but finds the minutiae of simulationist resolution a distraction from the real focus of play, and who finds the anti-metagame figleaves of "natural armour bonuses" and the like an obstacle to smooth build and resolution mechanics, the differences are not objectionable but desirable. But for 4e, I wouldn't be playing or GMing a D&D game - I'm pretty sure I'd be using D&D materials (sourcebooks, adventure modules etc) to support a HARP game.</p><p></p><p>D&Dnext as currently published can't support 4e combat, that is true. But I don't think this is because it has fewer limits. I think it's because (at present, at least) it has less power.</p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/330383-underdark-adventure-demons-beholders-elementals-hydra.html" target="_blank">Here's a description</a> of some recent encounters in my 4e game, including combat encounters. Some of the combat encounters described - the demons in the temple, the dracolich and the death giants - could be run in any of the fantasy RPGs I'm familiar with. But there are encounters there - the beholders, the hydra and (mabye to a lesser extent) the nightwalker with its bodaks - that could <em>only</em> be run in 4e. That's not because those encounters rely on "limits" or "quantitative" resolution. It's because 4e has the tools to handle terrain, mobility, position, and improvised actions, and also has resolution mechanics that ensure that the pacing and tension come out reliably: no cakewalks, no first-turn TPKs, the tide of battle ebbing and flowing as a consequence not just of lucky or unlucky dice rolls, but as a result of the choices made by the various participants in the game, and the downstream consequences of those choices.</p><p></p><p>When the focus is turned from combat to non-combat, there are plenty of fantasy RPGs that can handle intricate social conflict or exploration/physical challenges as strongly as 4e. I personally don't think that 3E is one of those systems, though, because it doesn't have strong rules for scene framing and scene-oriented resolution. In 3E, for example, having a really high Diplomacy bonus doesn't mean that social confilcts become epic and engaging in their resolution. Rather, it means that they don't happen - the GM frames a social conflict, the player applies his/her PCs extreme Diplomacy bonus, and then the GM has to refram the scene as one in which there is no social conflict, because the NPC/monster has come under the PC's spell.</p><p></p><p>D&Dnext doesn't yet have any mechanics for social conflict, so it's hard to compare it to 3E or 4e. But given the promises about "3 pillars", I would like to see some resolution mechanisms at least comparable in power to 4e's.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6035428, member: 42582"] My own view, as I expressed upthread (post 51), is that you have not successfully isolated the relevant differences. In particular, your claim that "solving your problem without ever drawing you sword . . . was outside of the [4e] system" is not borne out either by the 4e rules text, or the way people on these boards post about their 4e play. I linked to some examples of play from my own game to illusrate the point. And I don't think that talking about house rules is really apposite here. Skill challenges, the skill rules generally, quests, utility powers, rituals: these aren't house rules, they're core elements of 4e. That's not to deny that there are differences. I itemised some in my own post. But the differences, in my view, have little or nothing to do with "quantitiative" resolution or "limits". I personally don't have a strong sense of what people are doing with 3E, other than using it to run Paizo adventure paths. But it seems that many RPGers object to game rules that are overt about the metagame. So they prefer a "natural armour bonus", calculated to be level-appropriate, to 4e's "metagame" setting of monster ACs, even though the only consequences of labelling the bonus a "natural armour" one are bad for the game: it creates needless confusion about what the number actually means ingame (if Plate +5 - the best armour mortal smiths can forge from the most powerful meteoric metals available - gives a +13 to AC, what the heck does a +30 "natural armour" bonus even mean?); and it motivates players to have their PCs seek out such bonuses for themselves, which (if successful) completely undoes the whole point of the bonus in the first place, which is to achieve a degree of metagame balance in the combat rules. I'm very much the wrong person to try to sympathetically interpret this particular preference in game design. In my experience it seems to go along with a general assumption about the use of force by the GM, to keep "the story" and "the setting" on track, which is utterly contrary to my own preferences. But for someone who has that sort of preference, I can see how 4e would be "objectionably different" from 3E. Conversely, for someone like me, who very much enjoys the traditional tropes of fantasy RPGing, but finds the minutiae of simulationist resolution a distraction from the real focus of play, and who finds the anti-metagame figleaves of "natural armour bonuses" and the like an obstacle to smooth build and resolution mechanics, the differences are not objectionable but desirable. But for 4e, I wouldn't be playing or GMing a D&D game - I'm pretty sure I'd be using D&D materials (sourcebooks, adventure modules etc) to support a HARP game. D&Dnext as currently published can't support 4e combat, that is true. But I don't think this is because it has fewer limits. I think it's because (at present, at least) it has less power. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/330383-underdark-adventure-demons-beholders-elementals-hydra.html]Here's a description[/url] of some recent encounters in my 4e game, including combat encounters. Some of the combat encounters described - the demons in the temple, the dracolich and the death giants - could be run in any of the fantasy RPGs I'm familiar with. But there are encounters there - the beholders, the hydra and (mabye to a lesser extent) the nightwalker with its bodaks - that could [I]only[/I] be run in 4e. That's not because those encounters rely on "limits" or "quantitative" resolution. It's because 4e has the tools to handle terrain, mobility, position, and improvised actions, and also has resolution mechanics that ensure that the pacing and tension come out reliably: no cakewalks, no first-turn TPKs, the tide of battle ebbing and flowing as a consequence not just of lucky or unlucky dice rolls, but as a result of the choices made by the various participants in the game, and the downstream consequences of those choices. When the focus is turned from combat to non-combat, there are plenty of fantasy RPGs that can handle intricate social conflict or exploration/physical challenges as strongly as 4e. I personally don't think that 3E is one of those systems, though, because it doesn't have strong rules for scene framing and scene-oriented resolution. In 3E, for example, having a really high Diplomacy bonus doesn't mean that social confilcts become epic and engaging in their resolution. Rather, it means that they don't happen - the GM frames a social conflict, the player applies his/her PCs extreme Diplomacy bonus, and then the GM has to refram the scene as one in which there is no social conflict, because the NPC/monster has come under the PC's spell. D&Dnext doesn't yet have any mechanics for social conflict, so it's hard to compare it to 3E or 4e. But given the promises about "3 pillars", I would like to see some resolution mechanisms at least comparable in power to 4e's. [/QUOTE]
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