How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

[LostSoul]

Game 1 is a little loose in fear of dark side. Game 2 is like Russian Roulette: Are you ready to take the chance?

I'd put it this way: how far are you willing to go in order to get what you want?

In example two there is no baseline to begin with and thus time must be spent defining what is or isn't a dark side act (or else the same problems that so many complained about with the 3.5 Paladin's code and alignment will quickly arise). The DM has no examples to draw from and there is still the very real posibility that no matter how much beforehand discussion takes place...all the people in the group still aren't on the same page as far as what is or isn't a dark side act even after play has begun. There is also the distinct possibility that with numerous, even just slightly, divergent views on what the dark side is... eventually the dark side itself becomes meaningless as far as theme, narrative or anything else beyond it's effect of removing one's PC.

I mean what happens if I don't ask for extra dice (call on the dark side) but I use the force to slaughter an audience hall full of innocent people... is it or is it not a dark side act since I didn't ask for extra dice?

You don't have to worry about bickering about "Is this Dark Side or not?" stuff, unless you want to play "let's simulate the SW universe" game, where someone would get pissed off if you said, "No, releasing anger in a healthy way is not a bad thing." "But that's not Star Wars!" etc.

In the second game, no one player can declare if an act is a "Dark Side" act or not; PCs can take any action they wish without penalty (such as losing Paladin abilities) until they cross that line and the PC is removed from play. But players can choose when that risk is worth it.

If players are not on the same page - if someone thinks that slaughtering an audience hall full of innocents is worth it for the greater good and someone else thinks that person crossed the line - that's conflict and it makes for good drama. Then the limbs start getting chopped off.

And what does it say when the guy who's fighting for the memory of the innocents calls on the Dark Side?

I guess the point is that any action may be wrong or it may not be, but the rules don't decide that. The players do. They explore those themes through their characters.

I think this side-discussion is a distraction, though you can fork it if you'd like to talk about it more.

 

[Imaro]

I'd put it this way: how far are you willing to go in order to get what you want?



You don't have to worry about bickering about "Is this Dark Side or not?" stuff, unless you want to play "let's simulate the SW universe" game, where someone would get pissed off if you said, "No, releasing anger in a healthy way is not a bad thing." "But that's not Star Wars!" etc.

In the second game, no one player can declare if an act is a "Dark Side" act or not; PCs can take any action they wish without penalty (such as losing Paladin abilities) until they cross that line and the PC is removed from play. But players can choose when that risk is worth it.

If players are not on the same page - if someone thinks that slaughtering an audience hall full of innocents is worth it for the greater good and someone else thinks that person crossed the line - that's conflict and it makes for good drama. Then the limbs start getting chopped off.

And what does it say when the guy who's fighting for the memory of the innocents calls on the Dark Side?

I guess the point is that any action may be wrong or it may not be, but the rules don't decide that. The players do. They explore those themes through their characters.

I think this side-discussion is a distraction, though you can fork it if you'd like to talk about it more.

So your example is based on playing in the Star Wars universe... with a decidely Star Wars trope... but you're not really playing Star Wars. Ok, perhaps explaining that earlier would have made it more clear... I guess. I have to ask though, if the "Dark Side" is not the "Dark Side" of the Star Wars universe...which is certainly not subjective... then my previous point is made... "Dark Side" becomes meaningless and pointless in it's thematic and narrative sense as in essence it is no longer the "Dark Side" as recognized by most people but whatever anyone decides at a given moment is the Dark Side. Might be cool, but if I sat down at a "Star Wars" game and this was how the Dark Side worked... I wouldn't consider it a SW game, and I'd probably be lost if the GM didn't explain all of this before a jedi went on a murder spree and claimed it wasn't a dark side act because he didn't call on the dark side.

 

[Ariosto]

Fanaelialae's post on the previous page illustrates, I think, the fundamental approach to powers in 4E. Druid and Warlock are supposedly "magical" classes, but they can be treated as representing a "martial" character who uses machinegun and grenade.

It's like Risus, only orders of magnitude more complicated. It's also reminiscent of the generic powers with "special effects" overlaid in Champions.

That's a fine kind of game, and I don't think discussions such as this would have arisen in the first place if it had been called "Magic: The Ambiguation" instead of "Dungeons & Dragons".

Relative to D&D, it's upside-down and backwards. Instead of starting with an imagined world and then making up algorithms to represent it, abstract rules take precedence and the world is made to conform to them.

The distinction may be lost on those long accustomed to treat D&D as a set of literal rules rather than a collection of guidelines, which I think was not as far from the intent of the designers of 3E as from that in previous versions. With 3E, the attempt was made to provide a comprehensive "world machine" analogous to that in Champions, something into which one could put a "what if" question and get out an answer with some internal consistency and a genre-reflecting sort of verisimilitude.

The rules-lightnesses at the core of the TSR games can from that perspective be misleading. What Armor Class and Hit Points "mean" is a subtle matter, an abstraction derived from experience with historical war-gaming. A combat that literally consists of nothing but "roll to hit, roll for damage" with set factors, the numerical results being interpreted after the fact into a narrative, differs only in simplicity from the richness of abstract "tactical options" in 4E.

However, that is just a starting point. The examples of elaboration in supplements and later editions are notably directed at "simulation" of one aspect or another of the imagined situation. It was not presumed that such charts and procedures were either necessary or sufficient for proper adjudication of the myriad circumstances that arise in play. Any referee worth his salt would bring to bear a vastly more copious "tool kit" of common sense, knowledge and reason. Experience of the real world was the baseline, the default "set of rules".

In other words, what was intended (and by the target demographic generally understood) as descriptive is misunderstood as prescriptive. Most of the old familiar criticisms of D&D begin with that fundamental misunderstanding.

Some elements of the classic design certainly are "pure game". Getting experience points for treasure comes to mind as one commonly house-ruled, and notably changed in the "official, standard" rules of some later versions. Understanding the rationale behind it may be helpful even to those desiring a different method. The same can apply to other features.

What seems to be coming to a head now is a long-brewing disjunction between the original "prototype first, malleable rules" view and the more recent "model first, malleable world" view. (Other rifts are also very evident, but perhaps less germane to the discussion at hand).

One thing I have learned the hard way is that it is easier to complicate a basically simple and modular game than to simplify (or to change the "paradigm" of) a complexly integrated one. Wizards of the Coast came out of the gate with the latter, and 4E stays that course. Its major departure is in what it's trying to accomplish.

 

[Mad Mac]

I'd suggest making a blog post of this so you can add to it when other sources come out.

It is getting off topic for this thread, so done.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/mad-mac/1675-mechanical-thematic-look-power-sources.html

 

[Scribble]

If the rules don't have any meaning then there is no reason for thier inclusion IMHO. In an rpg, anything that is defined as a rule should have some meaning within the implied setting. Rules existing just for the sake of being rules are more appropriate for competitive games.:

And this is the crux of my disagreement. I don't agree that the rules should have any applied meaning to the world. They're just there to resolve the question of what happens when I try to do X task.

Games that DO try to present the rules as some sort of representation of the world around them in my opinion get WAY to pointlessly cumbersome. They devolve into too many various charts, sub-systems, and diverse ways of doing essentially the same thing.

This doesn't mean I think rules should exist just for the sake of being a rule either though. I think rules should exist only to answer the question asked at the table. "What happens when I hit with my ax?" "You do X amount of damage."

For my tastes a magic arrow and a real arrow don't need to have two seperate sets of mechanics to make one "feel" like a real arrow and the other "feal" like a magic arrow.

In both cases I believe there should be a hit chance, plus damage if the hit is successful. The difference for ME comes in the description of the event in game.

"Johan mutters a few ancient arcane words and a glowing green orb of eldrich energy appears before his outstretched hand. With another command the orb speeds off towards his oncoming opponent."

Feels much different to me then:

"Johan peers down the shaft of his currently knocked arrow. With a twang the powerful string of his great ashen bow sends the missle speeding off towards his oncoming enemy..."

The two effects are essentialy the same thing (a ranged attack) so we don't need two seperate rules to achieve the effect. I feel we can use the same rule structure, but describe the action differently.

 

[LostSoul]

"Dark Side" becomes meaningless and pointless in it's thematic and narrative sense as in essence it is no longer the "Dark Side" as recognized by most people but whatever anyone decides at a given moment is the Dark Side.

I would say it becomes meaningful because it's an exploration of the beliefs that the players have instead of recreating what Lucas put on the screen.

But it's a personal preference thing. Whether or not it's pointless or meaningful depends on your own tastes in gaming.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Let's assume all abilities are magic in 4E (or all abilities are mundane, which is strange, but a possible interpretation - I guess that would be the Dying Earth-type math-magic). There's no distinction in the rules, no reason to say one thing is magic and another is mundane. I can make an attack vs. Fort, close blast 3, deal 1d6 + stat mod and push 3 with a Thunderwave or (conceivably) a martial power. (That wouldn't be a bad power for a staff or longspear.)

Leaving game mechanics/ effects out of this for a moment lets look at the differences between magic/ non-magic from a flavor/tone view.
The actual effect it has in the game will be the same so what are the real differences? The differences are the expectations of the modeled reality of the fantasy world. The attack roll vs defense is a game construct that has no meaning to the setting. The important part is what the fantasy characters see happening and how it relates to what is known about the realities of thier world.

For example if this attack is viewed as mundane in both cases, what causes this to be so? When Joe NPC watches the wizard shout and gesture, then sees the goblin fly backwards what qualities of the world cause Joe accept this as a mundane act?
When Joe NPC watches the fighter swing his staff mightily striking the goblin in chest, then sees the goblin fly backwards what qualities of the world cause Joe accept this as a mundane act?

Without a quantifiable difference in what is viewed as mundane vs magical in a given world there can be no meaningful difference. Without a frame of reference the is no difference between mundane and magical.

Can my fighter disable that magic circle with Arcana? What if he's not trained in Arcana? What if he wanted to use it to Dominate the NPCs? Can he disable it with a martial attack?

If the answer is no, why not?

Assuming that there is an actual divide between mundane and magical, it would depend upon how one defines the Arcana skill. If the skill does not require magical talent to use then a fighter should be able to try. Being untrained depends on the skill being used. GURPS handles this very well with defaults. A character can TRY most anything but the chances of success are not usually good. There are some skills that require some training to even attempt.

What's the difference between playing a game where the rules tell us this and one where the rules don't say anything?

(I think, more specifically, I'm interested in how this relates to gamism; that is, players overcoming challenges through smart choices based on their own skill and experience with the game or setting. I think that these gaps in interpretations may open a space for players to learn about a particular DM's world and, through experience, become more adept at overcoming challenges in that world.)

Cases where the rules don't say anything can be great or awful depending on who you ask. In my opinion the more complex and structured the rules are the more ridiculous "legal" loopholes there are to abuse. This leads to endless patching and fixing that can lead to yet more "broken" rules, ect.

A set of simple rules along with a good dose of guidelines to produce sensible rulings is pure heaven. There are terrible DMs out there that have led to outcry of "mother may I" games being no fun. I say that if you don't trust the DM to make sensible rulings then perhaps gaming with this person isn't worth the effort. Complex rules won't stop jerks from being jerks. If large tight ruleset is required to keep anyone at the table "in line" on either side of the screen then fun has already been assassinated and it isn't going to help.

 

[Kask]

People are still arguing that taking control of someones body at a distance isn't "magic"? ROFL. Well, it's good for comedy relief.

 

[Mallus]

People are still arguing that taking control of someones body at a distance isn't "magic"?

Please don't make me explain this again. Please, I beg of you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Please don't make me explain this again. Please, I beg of you.

It isn't that you need to explain it again; it is that your explanation fails under examination.


RC