4E Consequences: Being passive, cautious, or a loner is now unoptimized

[Skallgrim]

See, this kind of opinion isn't helpful. Basically you're saying, "Its our way or the highway, sod off." D&D is a game about having fun and exploring other roles in a fantastic setting. Why should I be limited by the system to play a character that I don't want to? Sorry, but playing an interactive, dominating, frontline character is not something I always like to do, and I think that people need to respect that opinion. The system should be able to support both sides of the coin, if they wanted.

But then again, 4e is among the most elitest-producing game systems I've ever seen.

So, since you shouldn't "be limited by the system to play a character you don't want to", then the system needs to allow you to play any sort of character you want?

Logically, if there is ANY specific character which is the only character you want to play, then the system MUST allow you to play that character, or you feel the system is failing?

Completely seriously (but hypothetically): I don't want to play a character in a medieval fantasy world. I want to play a high tech giant robot pilot. Does D&D force me to play something I don't want to play? Yes, according to your standard, as it forces me to play a fantasy heroic character, and not a Mech pilot. Thus, D&D is bad, according to your standards.

If "play D&D if you want to play D&D, and play Mechwarrior if you want to play Mechwarrior" is elitist, then color me ELITE.

D&D has never, ever tried to be a universal RPG like HERO or GURPS. If you seriously think that "the system" shouldn't "force" you to play the types of characters the system was designed for, I think that you should either swap systems, or just get used to hating the game.

Even if you grant that it is a game for exploring "other roles in a fantastic setting", that doesn't mean that the game must allow you to explore every particular role in a fantastic setting.

If an individual group is happy with having a loner who dominates combat, then that is totally up to that group. It's not a "bad" choice, but it is a specific choice of play styles. D&D expressly states up front that balanced team play is a design goal. Why play something expressly not designed for your style of play? If you want to play a game with ranged combat, do you pick chess?

 

[Mort]

D&D is a game about having fun and exploring other roles in a fantastic setting.

To me that sentence is not complete until you add "with a group." If your in a solo game fine, but with a group a dominant solo character is distracting and annoying.

Why should I be limited by the system to play a character that I don't want to? Sorry, but playing an interactive, dominating, frontline character is not something I always like to do, and I think that people need to respect that opinion. The system should be able to support both sides of the coin, if they wanted.

Well the goal is for everyone to have fun, not just one person. That said, it's not like 4e doesn't have the dominant solo character. Why do you think people rag on the Battlerager Vigor fighter so much?

But then again, 4e is among the most elitest-producing game systems I've ever seen.

Having hung around the palladium boards and RPG.net forums; and having seen the Whitewolf boards I'd say it's not even close.

 

[Mort]

More direct response to OP:

One emergent property of 4E I have noticed as I have been playing and running it is that it tends to reward certain tactical playstyles, while penalizing others. The general flow of the game rewards being aggressive, taking risks to achieve greater results, and to make the most out of what your character can do. Certain behaviors, such as being cautious and trying not to die, being passive and not making the most out of what you can do, or going solo and behaving with no regard for what everybody else is doing, achieve bad results and can even result in a TPK. I have individual players who are either cautious, passive, or loners, and these players have had some problems with the game where others have not, and their playstyle didn't have as big of a negative impact when we were playing 3E.

As I consider all of those negative traits, I'm glad 4e discourages them. in 3e they were discouraged too, though less with spellcasters who could get away with more (one of my biggest beefs with 3e).

Some further comments on these in specific instances:

1. I've noticed some people get really discouraged when playing Defenders. Defenders get hit, get hit a lot, and get knocked unconscious a lot. A lot of players, especially those who are used to how 3E ran, just don't like getting beat on to the extent that 4E Defenders get abused. You really have to like being hit to play a Defender. Cautious players don't last as Defenders.

Then play a striker. That said, it depends on the defender. The swordmage (shielding) in my campaign has yet to be knocked unconscious. He positions himself well to prevent damage to others but does not put himself in bad positions; plus his high AC helps.

2. Passive players have real problems with certain classes. You have to take risks and put yourself in harms way for you to accomplish anything as a Rogue. Our most passive player previously preferred the Rogue above all other classes, and she just hasn't been doing well with the 4E Rogue at all. I've seen that passive Rogue players can't consistently achieve combat advantage, and that the Rogue class is powerless without it, while I've seen aggressive players with no regard for life and limb keep combat advantage applied 90%+ of the time. I've also noticed that the 4E Warlock lacks obvious power, but can equal the other characters by taking risks, provoking opportunity attacks to move and attack at point blank range, drawing enemy fire, and being a general pest. People playing Warlocks as being stand back and shoot characters have been very disappointed, while an insane Halfling Starlock who spent most of his time in melee range running around at full speed was often the most effective character we had. On the other hand, classes like Laser Clerics and Wizards are well used by passive players.

I think the developing trend is "passivity is bad." It's never been a good trait in any incarnation of D&D. Our rogue started out the "stay out of combat and shoot from range guy." but has gradually gotten into the fray more and more because flanking and thereby combat advantage have such obvious benefits. It doesn't hurt that the party swordmage does a great job of keeping pressure of him.

3. Our loner player has a real problem with 4E. He isn't a team player, and he isn't getting the same results he got with 3E. In 3E, he was a powergamer who had all the big guns and dominated combat. In 4E, he doesn't synergize well with what everyone else is doing, and feels powerless.

This is quite possible to do in 4e. But my general response is "good." I've been in parties with loner powergamers and they've tended to suck all the fun right out of the game for me.

 

[I'm A Banana]

One thing that is not helpful in this convo:

"I'm glad that 4e killed your playstyle, it was badwrongfun anyway, and now 4e won't have any of your type in it!"

Dudes, their style might not be your style, but that doesn't make it an invalid style. 4e doesn't decide what the right way and wrong way to play D&D is, no matter how hard it may or may not try to do that. Playing Loner-type characters, or cautious characters, is a valid kind of play that 4e doesn't really support. It's a fair cop: 4e can't be used by people who want those kinds of characters and those kinds of games. The schadenfreude over someone who is having a problem with their games is entirely unhelpful. More helpful might be something like "I happen to like that it encourages group play, and if most groups are like mine, 4e is probably better for most groups, even if it doesn't work that well for yours. You might want to try X (Paranoia? CoC? Dread? 2e?) instead."

Should 4e support all playstyles? Maybe it should have been more of a toolkit system. Maybe the focus is good because it helps D&D be more distinct as a game (I'm of this mind). Why might 4e have chosen to emphasize this style? What did they gain with it? What did they lose?

These are interesting avenues of conversation.

"Your way of playing sucked anyway" really isn't.

 

[Campbell]

One thing that is not helpful in this convo:

"I'm glad that 4e killed your playstyle, it was badwrongfun anyway, and now 4e won't have any of your type in it!"

Dudes, their style might not be your style, but that doesn't make it an invalid style. 4e doesn't decide what the right way and wrong way to play D&D is, no matter how hard it may or may not try to do that. Playing Loner-type characters, or cautious characters, is a valid kind of play that 4e doesn't really support. It's a fair cop: 4e can't be used by people who want those kinds of characters and those kinds of games. The schadenfreude over someone who is having a problem with their games is entirely unhelpful. More helpful might be something like "I happen to like that it encourages group play, and if most groups are like mine, 4e is probably better for most groups, even if it doesn't work that well for yours. You might want to try X (Paranoia? CoC? Dread? 2e?) instead."

Should 4e support all playstyles? Maybe it should have been more of a toolkit system. Maybe the focus is good because it helps D&D be more distinct as a game (I'm of this mind). Why might 4e have chosen to emphasize this style? What did they gain with it? What did they lose?

These are interesting avenues of conversation.

"Your way of playing sucked anyway" really isn't.

Excellent post. As far as I'm concerned I think it's a good thing that 4e focuses strongly on team oriented play because I have a stack full of RPGs (including 3e) where group challenges of all stripes are pretty much broken down into a series of individual challenges for individual characters. I like that 4e provides me with an experience I can't really find elsewhere with tabletop RPGs.

I know there will be a lot of disagreement here, but I think 3.5 pretty much reached the pinnacle of game design for the style of play it supports. There really wasn't too much that could be done within the constraints of a class based role playing game to encourage diversification and customization of characters beyond some simple tweaks to its skill system, and 3e's blitzkrieg style combat couldn't really be improved upon in nontrivial ways and remain consistent with its nature.

The above paragraph really highlights a big part of the reason why 4e diverges so strongly with 3e on a philosophical level. While I'm not sure it was conscious, I believe 4e's designers knew that for 4e to contribute something meaningful from a design standpoint it would have to offer a different vision of what D&D could be like by both offering up some new ideas and going back to some old ones that 3e displaced.

 

[Henry]

To me that sentence is not complete until you add "with a group." If your in a solo game fine, but with a group a dominant solo character is distracting and annoying.

I would also add that D&D was designed as a team cooperative game since its inception in 1974. I'd go so far as to say that D&D that encourages solo play is counter to how the game's been designed over the decades.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

D&D 3.5 allowed you to play defensively only, when the DM (me) doesn´t play the monsters too smart... My monsters would never turn their back o a fighter in melee... (only maybe some wizard is obviously much tooo dangerous)

Also defensive tactis only work out on lower levels (monstrous) NPCs... plate armor, shield and combat expertise can get you an AC of 26 at Level 5. that will make sure you are not hit that much when facing npcs.

When you face real monsters, usually they have enough strength to hit you despite your high AC.

Solo: you can play solo in D&D 3.5, but it can cause a fast death. If you are a rogue and you face something that detects you you are dead. No "combat advantage" and you do no damage.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't mind if the passive and-or cautious players (and, by extension, characters) get hosed a bit - me, I love the gonzo charge-first-and-ask-questions-never style of game.

However, regarding "loners", one thing to keep in mind is loner does not always equal powergamer. I'll sometimes play lone-wolf characters, but I'm a pretty pathetic powergamer; just ask the guys who went over me 3e character sheets.

One other way to encourage the idea of "party", is to really limit multiclassing and-or niche invasion; so each character is somewhat forced to rely on the others to do the things s/he cannot. This has worked reasonably well for me in 1e.

Lanefan

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I know there will be a lot of disagreement here, but I think 3.5 pretty much reached the pinnacle of game design for the style of play it supports. There really wasn't too much that could be done within the constraints of a class based role playing game to encourage diversification and customization of characters beyond some simple tweaks to its skill system, and 3e's blitzkrieg style combat couldn't really be improved upon in nontrivial ways and remain consistent with its nature.

This I have to really disagree with. My main problem with 3.5e was exactly that is didn't support any play style perfectly and attempted to do them all instead. You could make a character who was able to solo no problem. You could make a character who was a lone wolf. You could make someone who casted spells, used magic, was psionic, stealthy, and was a BBQ chef. However, he would not do any of them well.

It concentrated SO much on "You can do anything with this system" that you couldn't really do ANYTHING without some mechanical problems. So, what was it the pinnacle of? If we're talking that it was the pinnacle of being able to make diverse characters...well, maybe. Except it depends what you wanted to DO with those characters. If there were 4-6 of them going on a typical D&D adventure then it certainly wasn't good at making them all equally good at adventuring. Or all of them equally fun on a typical adventure.

That's why I think 4e diverges so strongly with 3e. 3e design came simply from the point of view of "How can we take 2e but make it much more open, being able to be anything you can think of while keeping a class system and trying to improve the balance between classes." It succeeded at doing that, I suppose. But not 100% It made things open, but using a system where 90% of all characters who multiclassed weren't all that viable. It improved balance quite a bit compared to 2e. However, there were still severe imbalances that needed a complete overhaul to fix.

Did it go as far as it could using the framework of 1e and 2e? I think it went 95% of the way there. If I was going to continue running 3.5e, I would probably implement a bunch of house rules to fix the balance(things like giving everyone full BAB, removing full attacks, trying to come up with a new multiclassing system, and so on).

 

[Fenes]

About loners:

It's really not that different if I watch how my friend's character makes a furious special attack in a battle my character is fighting too, or if I watch it while my character is off trying to lose the guards that are chasing him after that misunderstanding with the king. Both times I am not doing anything while the other player does his thing, and then it's my turn again. Whether I get to act for 1 minute every three minutes, or for 5 minutes every 15 minutes, my playing time remains the same.

I am not really bored by listening to what other characters do, even if my character is not present, as long as it is interesting. I'd be bored listening to boring scenes even if my character is present.

Where having characters be together shines is when they interact and talk with each other - but there's not much you can say in 6 seconds while you cast a spell or make a feint, so that's not too noticeable in combat.