www.play-board-games.com blogs about How DnD 4th Edition is like a board game

[Stormonu]

I just look at games like Descent, Dungeon!, Heroquest, Dragonstrike, the 3E Basic boxed set and the boxed D&D challenger sets (Goblin's Lair, Dragon's Den, Haunted Tower) and I have to smile. The game board's always been there, but it has an incredibly strong presence in 4E.

For me, it's always what's been beyond the battlemat that's been the fun of the game.

 

[LostSoul]

When I first started playing (Moldvay Basic), we played it just like a boardgame - we had nothing else to go on. Dungeon! was our biggest influence, since we played that before getting into D&D. (Too bad we left it in the treehouse in the rain. ) We moved through the dungeon a number of squares based on movement speed, tracked turns, drew the map, rolled for wandering monsters and treasure - those procedures were not much different from Dungeon!.

Our fights were like Wizardry, though. We put the character sheets into two ranks and only let the first rank take melee attacks while the second rank could use ranged attacks and spells.

Good times.

 

[pemerton]

4E plays more like a board game because it doesn't require you to give the fictional content any weight.

I think this is the best attempt to explain why the game is like a board game, on the assumption that it is like one. But I don't entirely accept the assumption. I think 4e does require the fictional content to be given weight. This is obvious in non-combat situations: skill challenges, using rituals, general exploration, etc.

But I think it is also true in combat: positioning and speed, for example, are part of the fictional content, and they matter. At least in my experience, so are many of the properties of both PCs and NPCs/monsters - whether they're bloodied or not, whether they're big or small, whether they're wreathed in flames or not. These things all matter, and they're all elements of the fictional content.

Maybe "mattering" isn't enough to establish "required", however - because the rules establish these factors in rule terms alone, I guess you could play the game without worrying about the fictional content that the rules are representing or mediating.

But then, in this case are you fully playing the game? For example, if you don't think about the fictional content that the combat mechanics are representing/mediating, then you're going to have trouble implementing various skills, especially Acrobatics, or anything that is based on DMG p 42. This is why I think it matters, in thinking about what 4e is as a game, and whether or not it is boardgame/MMO like, to consider all the elements of the game mechanics and not just chapter 9 of the PHB.

(Similarly, Burning Wheel's Fight! mechanics look like they could be deployed without having much regard to the fictional content being represented/mediated, but if you didn't pay attention to the fictional content then you couldn't use FoRKs in combat, and so wouldn't be playing the game in the fullest sense.)

 

[bagger245]

One way to test out an rpg: Three game tables all using miniatures; 4e, CoC and Vampire.

Now take all their miniatures and burn them. Which game can still run smoothly without any adjustments to the rules?

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Agreed. However, I recently realized that the way that D&D Encounters is set up is _very_ similar to a board game set up:
It requires a minimum of prep-time, comes with battle-maps, sample characters, tokens, etc. About the only difference to a 'normal' board game is the role of the DM.

I'm not sure if there's ever been something as close to a board game in previous editions.

Just about every RPGA tournament module since the beginning of tournament play, minus the tokens and battlemaps, which the referee was intended to supply in some fashion (even if just in a purely descriptive sense).

4E plays more like a board game because it doesn't require you to give the fictional content any weight.

It's like how building a road through mountains in Settlers of Cataan is the same as building a road anywhere else; the fact that it's through mountains, or "haunted, bandit-plagued mountains" doesn't matter.

No edition of D&D has required this. The weight of the fictional content has always been on the shoulders of the DM.

One way to test out an rpg: Three game tables all using miniatures; 4e, CoC and Vampire.

Now take all their miniatures and burn them. Which game can still run smoothly without any adjustments to the rules?

The miniatures and battlemap do not harken to board games though. They tie back to the roots of wargaming. Wargaming has roots in board games, but I'm sure most wargamers would not agree that wargaming = boardgaming.

 

[bagger245]

Is RISK a boardgame or a wargame? And why isn't Descent or Arkham Horror an rpg? They seem to be hybrids to me..

 

[Gort]

No edition of D&D has required this. The weight of the fictional content has always been on the shoulders of the DM.

Agreed. You can play any edition of D&D as much like a game of "kill monsters and take their stuff" or "let's have a great big indepth story where game rules hardly enter into it at all". For instance, some players of OD&D laud the fact that you could make a character in about sixty seconds because it meant you could have a couple of backups to throw into the meatgrinder dungeon after the inevitable death of your current character.

It's one of the great strengths of D&D - it caters to a wide range of play styles, and a DM can make it as beer and pretzels or as deep roleplaying as they like. There have never been any rules for playing a character, though I guess you can use Intimidate or Diplomacy skills if you're no good at making actual arguments in real life.

As far as I can see, this thread just seems to be another edition war in the making. After a while cries of, "It's not a roleplaying game, it's an X!" just gets tiresome. It's an RPG. It's a game where you play roles. Suck it up.

 

[Shazman]

I have to agree with the blog. If you are going to compare RPG's to boardgames, then 4E is the most "boardgamey" one that I am familiar with. Although it probably has much more similarities with WoW and the now defunct D&D Miniatures game than it does with boardgames.

 

[jbear]

I just look at games like Descent, Dungeon!, Heroquest, Dragonstrike, the 3E Basic boxed set and the boxed D&D challenger sets (Goblin's Lair, Dragon's Den, Haunted Tower) and I have to smile. The game board's always been there, but it has an incredibly strong presence in 4E.

For me, it's always what's been beyond the battlemat that's been the fun of the game.

I'm with you. I only began playing RPG (in direct disobediance to my father who was an evangelist minister) after playing and loving Heroquest.

I certainly related them back then as similar things. I also relished spending my hard earned pocket money on my new lead miniatures, which of course were used during the game. This was AD&D.

It was like a board game, of course it was, only you could use your imagination and actually go right off the board and take/follow the story/adventure anywhere you wanted to.

How I play 4e, same rules apply.

 

[LostSoul]

But I think it is also true in combat: positioning and speed, for example, are part of the fictional content, and they matter. At least in my experience, so are many of the properties of both PCs and NPCs/monsters - whether they're bloodied or not, whether they're big or small, whether they're wreathed in flames or not. These things all matter, and they're all elements of the fictional content.

The question is - do these matter in the same way that Boardwalk has higher rent because it's on the beach, or because of its location on the board?

There's a way of playing the game that puts the weight on the statblock and removes it from the fictional content. Here are some examples:

• A black pudding can't squeeze through cracks under doors because the rules for squeezing say they can't; since ogres can't do it, neither can the black pudding.
• The only way to disarm someone is to bring them to 0 hp or have a power that explicitly says the creature is disarmed, even if you are standing on the weapon or you can control the creature's mind.
• Come and Get It pulls creatures into bad positions regardless of any fictional considerations - archers jump off fortified towers or drop prone.
• An ogre isn't level 8 because it's big and strong and raised to fight; it's level 8 because it's level 8. It could be level 1 or level 30; the fiction doesn't map.

It's not necessary to play the game this way, but it's a valid style.

I've only played Descent once, but I seem to recall that line-of-sight was very important. In Descent you can't place a mirror in a corner and expand your line-of-sight. That's what I would consider a board-gamey rule; even though the fiction supports it, the rules don't, so you can't do it.

These aren't good or bad things in and of themselves; the question is how they support the metagame goals of play itself. Do you want to put an emphasis on exploring the world? Running dangerous fights for heroes? Challenging political or social beliefs? Focusing on strategic or tactical play?

I think there's a lot to say about how one could run 4E for different styles/metagame goals of play and which techniques would support those goals better. For example, if one of your goals is to explore the world, you probably won't want to raise or lower the levels of monsters (save where world-appropriate - e.g. young and the infirm), while if you're playing a game focusing on "premise" you probably will want to raise or lower monster levels in order to provide appropriate adversity while getting the colour right.