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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5993523" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Yes and no.</p><p></p><p>There are some people here with different play experiences and different playstyle preferences who seem able to meaningfully talk to one another and compare notes: me, Balesir, CJ, Hussar, innerdude, Lanefan, Tony Vargas, S'mon and others.</p><p></p><p>As far as the handful who repeatedly post in the vein of "4e is not really an RPG/ruined D&D for anyone interested in serious immersive roleplaying", I'm not expecting to persuade them of anything. But I am interested in learning new techniques for GMing and for play, and also am interested in more general issues of design that lie behind those techniques. And those sorts of things sometimes come out in these sorts of threads.</p><p></p><p>That's certainly part of it. Actual play examples, for me at least, are pretty important. A big part of how I learned to GM 4e, for exampe, was actual play posts by [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION].</p><p></p><p>I feel a bit differently about this. For example, actual play descriptions from [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] explained to me how 4e could be played in a gamist fashion, which I hadn't previously understood. An actual play example from Hussar, about his spoon-wielding priest of Kord (built mechanically as a rogue) showed me how one player is using reskinning in interesting ways that my table probably never would (I think we're more conservative with respect to our tropes than Hussar). [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] gives lots of actual play examples that show how some classic D&D concepts, like large parties built from stables of PCs, and rules for treasure division, can actually play out in a game and make an important difference to how the situation unfolds. You might think that this <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/301282-actual-play-examples-balance-between-fiction-mechanics.html" target="_blank">actual play</a> thread of mine proves your point, but I found it useful and interesting for helping to reflect on some particular techniques that I use as a GM.</p><p></p><p>I gave an actual play example in this thread - about the paladin who got polymorphed and turned back - to show how metagame mechanics can serve rather than hinder a player's immersive inhabition of his/her PC. I'd be interested to hear what those who don't like metagame mecahnics think about it - eg do they think it's a different sort of immersion from what they're after? do they not like the idea that the player's first person narration, in the voice of his/her PC, can also operate in director's stance to set other parameters of the fiction? have they ever had this sort of play experience themselves? etc</p><p></p><p>I certainly think there are very different approaches to the action resolution mechanics going on here. And to the character build mechanics too.</p><p></p><p>I've certainly read multiple posts over the past few weeks that praise some version of pre-4e D&D for its ability to do XYZ, and then it turns out that the poster is using a house rule of some sort to do XYZ. So some people count "can do it with house rules" as entailing "can do it".</p><p></p><p>There are also different approaches to the role of the GM, and the GM's power in relation to the action resolution mechanics (eg can s/he unilaterally suspend them?). In the "return to long durations" thread, it came out that some people want long durations measured by refrence to ingame units of time, rather than at-the-table units of play (scenes, sessions, etc) even though they agreed that a lot of ingame time measurement in play involves GM hand-waving</p><p></p><p>This sort of difference also came out in my reply to Imaro a few posts up: for me, low CHA doesn't mean "weak personality" just because I read it on the sheet, but because, in play, a low CHA PC won't push scenes in the direction its player wants via successful CHA checks. And likewise with durations: I don't feel any need or desire to read durations on a spell description, and thereby get assurance about some details of some element of the fiction, when it's not going to come up in play. For others, this is quite important: they don't identify the content of the fiction primarily by reference to what has actual come out of, and mattered to, play.</p><p></p><p>I'll leave [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] to answer what techniques and mechanics of play he(?) regards as important. I've already given an example upthread of an episode of immersive play that <em>depended upon "plot coupons"</em> to take place. So I need "plot coupons" (ie metagame mechanics that support director stance on the part of players) to get that sort of experience in my games.</p><p></p><p>I'm also curious about why you see a "per minute" limit on attack rolls in AD&D, or a "per level" limit on open lock checks in AD&D, as fundamentally different from a "per day" or "per five minutes" limit on some particular maneouvres in 4e.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5993523, member: 42582"] Yes and no. There are some people here with different play experiences and different playstyle preferences who seem able to meaningfully talk to one another and compare notes: me, Balesir, CJ, Hussar, innerdude, Lanefan, Tony Vargas, S'mon and others. As far as the handful who repeatedly post in the vein of "4e is not really an RPG/ruined D&D for anyone interested in serious immersive roleplaying", I'm not expecting to persuade them of anything. But I am interested in learning new techniques for GMing and for play, and also am interested in more general issues of design that lie behind those techniques. And those sorts of things sometimes come out in these sorts of threads. That's certainly part of it. Actual play examples, for me at least, are pretty important. A big part of how I learned to GM 4e, for exampe, was actual play posts by [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]. I feel a bit differently about this. For example, actual play descriptions from [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] explained to me how 4e could be played in a gamist fashion, which I hadn't previously understood. An actual play example from Hussar, about his spoon-wielding priest of Kord (built mechanically as a rogue) showed me how one player is using reskinning in interesting ways that my table probably never would (I think we're more conservative with respect to our tropes than Hussar). [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] gives lots of actual play examples that show how some classic D&D concepts, like large parties built from stables of PCs, and rules for treasure division, can actually play out in a game and make an important difference to how the situation unfolds. You might think that this [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/301282-actual-play-examples-balance-between-fiction-mechanics.html]actual play[/url] thread of mine proves your point, but I found it useful and interesting for helping to reflect on some particular techniques that I use as a GM. I gave an actual play example in this thread - about the paladin who got polymorphed and turned back - to show how metagame mechanics can serve rather than hinder a player's immersive inhabition of his/her PC. I'd be interested to hear what those who don't like metagame mecahnics think about it - eg do they think it's a different sort of immersion from what they're after? do they not like the idea that the player's first person narration, in the voice of his/her PC, can also operate in director's stance to set other parameters of the fiction? have they ever had this sort of play experience themselves? etc I certainly think there are very different approaches to the action resolution mechanics going on here. And to the character build mechanics too. I've certainly read multiple posts over the past few weeks that praise some version of pre-4e D&D for its ability to do XYZ, and then it turns out that the poster is using a house rule of some sort to do XYZ. So some people count "can do it with house rules" as entailing "can do it". There are also different approaches to the role of the GM, and the GM's power in relation to the action resolution mechanics (eg can s/he unilaterally suspend them?). In the "return to long durations" thread, it came out that some people want long durations measured by refrence to ingame units of time, rather than at-the-table units of play (scenes, sessions, etc) even though they agreed that a lot of ingame time measurement in play involves GM hand-waving This sort of difference also came out in my reply to Imaro a few posts up: for me, low CHA doesn't mean "weak personality" just because I read it on the sheet, but because, in play, a low CHA PC won't push scenes in the direction its player wants via successful CHA checks. And likewise with durations: I don't feel any need or desire to read durations on a spell description, and thereby get assurance about some details of some element of the fiction, when it's not going to come up in play. For others, this is quite important: they don't identify the content of the fiction primarily by reference to what has actual come out of, and mattered to, play. I'll leave [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] to answer what techniques and mechanics of play he(?) regards as important. I've already given an example upthread of an episode of immersive play that [I]depended upon "plot coupons"[/I] to take place. So I need "plot coupons" (ie metagame mechanics that support director stance on the part of players) to get that sort of experience in my games. I'm also curious about why you see a "per minute" limit on attack rolls in AD&D, or a "per level" limit on open lock checks in AD&D, as fundamentally different from a "per day" or "per five minutes" limit on some particular maneouvres in 4e. [/QUOTE]
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