D&D 4E Forked Thread: 4e And 4th Wall, was multiclassing - is Arcane Initiate too powerful?

[Lizard]

Forked from: 4E multiclassing - is Arcane Initiate too powerful?

No, I just think there could be ways to avoid shoving the illogic so blatantly in your face. They basically say, "The PCs pay more for ritual scrolls than anyone else on the planet. Because. Nyeah." Prior editions might not have held up under any kind of careful scrutiny (1e/2e: Why would ANYONE make the thousands of items dungeons are stuffed with; 3e:How do you get LESS skilled by practicing your craft?), but they survived the casual once over. There was some attempt to pretend that there were reasons beyond pure game balance.

You may not be playing "Markets & Mavens", but, the more the unreality of the world is paraded about, the less anyone cares about it.

Here's an example. When you watch a movie, you know it is fiction. You've seen the actors in other movies; you know that you're seeing a set. You know the bullets are fake, the stunts staged, the lines scripted. Nonetheless, you can become emotionally involved, because the camera doesn't move back to show the bounds of the set, the false fronts are never revealed, you don't see the stuntman get up and dust himself off after he's been "shot". If you did, your ability to lose yourself in the story would be impeded. 4e, more than any earlier version of D&D, revels in tearing down the fourth wall, in constantly reminding you that you're playing a game and that everything in the game is based on that fact, first and foremost. The ability to care about the world -- and thus, about the characters who inhabit it -- is undermined.

It's certainly easy to find examples of this in older versions of D&D, but it was never so blatant, and never have the designers been so open about why it is.

(I can't find the fork thread button, or I would.)

 

[Kzach]

Forked from: 4E multiclassing - is Arcane Initiate too powerful?

Your point?

 

[Lizard]

Your point?

That Balance Uber Alles is not the be-all and end-all of rules design?

That "I'm not running an economic sim, so what do I care?" is not self-evidently the only response to issues about 4e's somewhat dubious economic rules?

That I wrote some stuff, realized I was drifting seriously off topic when I've critiqued others for doing so, and decided that between the options of deleting what I'd written, being a hypocrite, and forking the thread, I chose the latter?

That I'd like to start a conversation on where the tipping point is between a "simulation" so tedious and dry it's unplayable, and "gamism" so obvious that you might as well be playing Heroscape or Munchkin Quest?

Pick any or all of the above.

 

[darkadelphia]

Perhaps it's the folks I play with, but we wasted so much of the best years of our lives talking about treasure and searching the market, etc. that I'm absolutely happy to have quick, easy rules that favor the players using what the DM actually puts in the game. It's 100% awesome to me. No problems.

 

[Lizard]

Perhaps it's the folks I play with, but we wasted so much of the best years of our lives talking about treasure and searching the market, etc. that I'm absolutely happy to have quick, easy rules that favor the players using what the DM actually puts in the game. It's 100% awesome to me. No problems.

Well, actually, in terms of 4e, they DON'T. They favor the players taking what the DM puts into the game and turning that into whatever magic items the players want their characters to have, with any excess being given to Mysterious Traveling Merchants who buy the items for half price and then, apparently, toss them into Spheres Of Annhilation, since there is no one on the planet who will pay MORE than half price for magic items -- except the PCs.

1/2e was the system where "You used what the DM gave you, period."

EDIT: I personally find the 3e system to be very annoying, because as a DM I *like* controlling the flow of magic items, but the rules and player expectations means I permit making magic items in my games. 4e just takes what I didn't like about 3e in this area and "Turns it up to 11" -- for all practical purposes, 4e dungeons should come equipped with vending machines. Dump unwanted magic items in the hopper and order the ones you want, like a magical Amazon.

 

[Ahglock]

I mostly agree. Right now in 4e I find my self basically covering my eyes and saying don't see the man behind the mirror, just enjoy the show, have fun, its a game. I hope that eventually this will just come naturally as the new rules eventually fall into a new world logic for me.

I've been successful in keeping disgruntled basic D&D player from making smart ass comments and being the bad apple that spoiled all the fun. But so far my fun has not been in it because of the blatant illogic and overt gamism.

Luckily most of my players are there to play and have not really concerned them selves with little things like the rules, and I think they are set up to not even see the man behind the mirror for a while at least, and hopefully by the time they do it will be too late.

Thing is I'm the DM if I don't start having fun soon, neither will they, I can only fake it so long.

I'm sorely tempted to go back to hero. I get to try WHFRPG next sunday as a player, so maybe that will be cool and inspire me.

 

[tombowings]

Well, 4th Edition was intended to get rid of a lot of the simulationism presented in previous editions. I don't see this as a problem, because the whole point was to sack the simulationism and get on with the game. However, this may not be your cup of tea. So instead of trying to search the system for something that isn't there, why not try one of these ideas:

1) Accept that simulationism was scraped for a more gamist approach. The developers knew that some people would be looking for something else and they did it there way regardless. So why not have fun with the system that they did make. Eh?
2) Write a economic system mechanics that better suit your taste.
3) Go back to playing another edition of D&D or a different game entirely. There's nothing wrong with that.
4) Stop playing RPGs. I urge you not to go this route, but it's always an option.

All of these ideas will help you increase your overall PRG enjoyment. Don't be afraid to decide that a certain system isn't to your taste and grab something else. Hero may be more what you're looking for.

So please, lets all stop trying to poke wholes in each others games and do something constructive to either fix the wholes that you see or find a different system to fulfill your needs.

 

[Thasmodious]

I don't agree at all with your assumptions about 4e, lizard. Breaking the 4th wall isn't a moment when you can tell that the city block is a set or that the snow looks a bit fake, its when the lead character turns, looks directly into the camera and says, "see what I did there?" I don't see that in the actual play of 4e, at all. So they make a bunch of decisions in favor of gamism over simulationism, thank god says a great many of us. But that's not a 4th wall issue, because it is not revealed in the play of the game. Monsters don't up and scream, I have 1hp and can't gain temp HP! They simply die when struck a meaningful blow, just like the millions of cinematic and literary minions that have come before them. The 4e market makes fine sense, its just not sense you want to accept. That doesn't constitute a 4th wall violation. Your assumptions are flawed because you present them as a shared set of assumptions that everyone agrees with, when this is just not the case.

 

[MarkB]

Well, actually, in terms of 4e, they DON'T. They favor the players taking what the DM puts into the game and turning that into whatever magic items the players want their characters to have, with any excess being given to Mysterious Traveling Merchants who buy the items for half price and then, apparently, toss them into Spheres Of Annhilation, since there is no one on the planet who will pay MORE than half price for magic items -- except the PCs.

Well, actually they only pay 1/5th price, which is indeed a good reason to use what you find rather than sell it.

And whilst you're unlikely to find anyone in the world who'll pay an ichor-spattered bunch of professional tomb-looters more than 1/5th of an item's market value second hand, a professional merchant who takes a little time and effort to properly restore and recondition that item and come up with a convincing history of it will likely be able to sell it on for a profit - maybe even for full market value or more.

You are not that merchant, because the game is not "Merchants & Mavens".

 

[Shabe]

But its not a huge departure from the previous edition, 50% versus 20%, besides how can you justify that no one else pays these prices, surely the merchants charge this price to every other person who is in the market for magic items? from nobles to the bouncer at a particularly rough public house, presumably they also get the same prices when they sell.
I guess you're talking about why doesn't party A.dventures Inc deal with party Mr C.ashcow without Mr Greedy B. Merchant getting in the way, good question, I tend to say that no one is really in the market for a magic flim flam at the moment, unless they have a contact/friend that they wish to sell to, but not many people are that rich.
Selling / Disenchanting items hasn't come up yet in my game as the party are only 3rd so are still trying to fill up their magic item slots, but I don't really think the players are going to miss anything compared to my last game which had carefully itemized shops and dc's for getting bargins out of them, they really ate into the session's time.
If they are interested in doing that then they can by all means, but i'm kind of hoping that they want to save the village from being destroyed and then run off to stop some guards from being sold off as slaves, rather than run back and forth around the Nentir vale or beyond looking for some extra cash.
I think the 4th wall is all happy, present and correct, its just the same as usual, players and characters have different information.
Characters are required not to look too hard at things that compromise the suspension of disbelief like leveling up benefits, the fact that killing monsters allows you to cast more powerful spells rather than staying at home studying, the fact that monsters seem to be just enough of a challenge to the heroes, characters can't copy each other's skills/moves no matter how hard they train, the economy etc, it's present in many systems.
Yes 4e is more gameist, yes it requires characters to overlook things, yes it requires the player to have more information so that they can make a decision for the character, but can't that be put down to the fact that the games focus is on the character being a hero and doing heroic things?