What is playing 4e like for you?

[jenskot]

Awesome answers. This is really helping me!

Just a quick clarification, I definitely don't mean boardgame in a bad. I like boardgames. I just mean does combat get so focused on the tactics and rules that the imaginary stuff and character motivations become secondary.

Thanks everyone.
-John

 

[Truename]

-What level are you?

5th level. Started with H1 in October and then moved to Scales of War (Bordrin's Watch) afterwards.

-How long do you play for?

2.5 to 3 hours, once per week.

-How many combats do you play?

About two.

-How long do they take?

60-90 minutes, with climactic battles taking 2+ hours. They've been taking longer recently, probably because the group size is bigger. In the current adventure (Shadow Rift of Umbraforge), the combats have had a lot of conditions flying around and I've often had no time to study the encounter in advance. This has slowed things down.

Grind is generally nonexistant, but I'd like the fights to go faster so we could do more out-of-combat stuff. We use a lot of table management tricks to keep the speed up (plan your turn while others are moving; initiative cards; power cards; condition tokens; roll damage at same time as attack; etc), but with so many players it just takes a long time. When we have 3-4 players (rarely), it's very fast.

-How many players do you play with?

Typically 6 players + DM. We've recently added a 7th. It's large and fun, but slow, so if we lose anyone through attrition, I won't try to replace them.

-How long do you roelplay for outside of combat?

Very little... perhaps 30 minutes per session. I'd like to see more, but with such short sessions, it's difficult to get everything in. Also, the whole group is pretty new (including me, the DM) and the roleplaying usually feels forced and awkward.

-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?

Yes; we like boardgames, so we play up that aspect of the game with power cards, condition tokens, coins for hitpoints, bloodied markers, and so on.

EDIT: As the group has become bigger, combat's become more boardgamey and tactical, with less p42 improv or characterization. I think that's because there's so much going on and everyone's trying to keep it moving quickly.

-Do you change any of the rules?

Once an encounter is a foregone conclusion, I'll cut it short by having monsters flee or converting them to minions. Other than that, we're following the rules and Scales of War adventures closely.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

We're 5 players and everyone runs his own campaign, switching weekly. Also, I am in an online campaign.

-What level are you?
Level 4 (Rise of the Runelords), Level 6 (Curse of the Crimson Throne), Level 19 (Savage Tides), Level 7 (I am the DM, H2), Level 2 (I am the DM, Online Campaign, homebrew, starting with KotS elements). We also have a Warhammer 4E campaign, but we have paused it for a while and played Torg instead with the DM, so I don't remember exactly which level. It's homebrew.

-How long do you play for?
My regular group usually starts around 18:00 and the game runs to 1:00 to 2:00 in the night, so around 6-8h. (Of course, with the usual goofing around and making jokes ).
The only campaign is about 2h30m per game

-How many combats do you play?
3-7, I think. Online 1-3 combats.

-How long do they take?
About an hour seems right, but it depends. In my own campaign, since the PCs are a little higher level, I conflated a few encounters in H2 to one encounter, making it a lot longer and harder.

-How many players do you play with?
3-4 players. Usually we make sure that we have 4 PCs, though, so someone has/may run two characters. The online campaign has 4 players, too.

-How long do you roleplay for outside of combat?
Depends on the adventure, I'd say we are pretty combat heavy. About 1-2h per session or so is usually involved with gathering clues, talking to people, making decisions. We don't spend too much time just "hanging around" in-character. There is usually always an in-game goal we follow. (make an ally, find the culprit, figure out the mystery, where can we go next to kill people and take their stuff.)

-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?
Combat is always about tactics, so in that way, it's certainly like that. In games where we don't need a grid (Torg for example), we still play with a similar mindset, but you don't have to track positions, of course. But there is always some light role-playing on, characters talking with each other or the enemy, narrating what your attack does (but not every attack. ).
One of the fun things is the joking that goes on that is based on the fact that it's a roleplaying game - for example when a player announces his character to be bloodied, the Tiefling player will jokingly consider him as one of the target "hey, he's bloodied, and in this position I'd get combat advantage, too!". You don't usually get these in board games (well, it probably depends on what kind of board game. I could see it in Warhammer 40K, but not in Chess or Checkers. )

-Do you change any of the rules?
So far, I don't remember any changes. I think I'd ban the Battlerager Fighter in my campaign.

In the online campaign, I decided to give out twice the usual XP. Online we don't have so much time and I don't want to sit around at one level for too long.

 

[Cadfan]

Our characters rarely start with backstories. Certainly nothing beyond "tiefling orphan raised by humans." But they tend to develop personalities through play, and since I freely permit retconning this sort of thing, they retroactively develop backstories.

This may seem really haphazard, and to a certain extent it is, but it tends to lead to tightly knit groups of PCs with backstories that reference one another.

I also incorporate something I stole from Og: Unearthed. Within reason, you can suddenly discover mid game that you know how to do something you've never done before. Og does this by permitting PCs to choose their skills during the game instead of before hand. I do the same thing for non adventuring skills, with the caveat that you have to explain how you know how to do whatever it is, and that this is now part of your backstory. So we have one PC who knows how to captain a sailing vessel. She decided this because we needed someone who knew how to do this. She gave me a plausible reason for how it related to her existing backstory, and now its worked in and now she has this skill. If she wants to discover a skill again she'll face some difficulty because she'll have to work it into her existing backstory, which now has less "empty space" in it.

 

[Wormwood]

-What level are you?

11th. Paragon is *awesome* so far.

-How long do you play for?

~5 hours

-How many combats do you play?

Between 3 and 4.

-How long do they take?

45 minutes on average, depending on the DM, the size of the encounter, etc.

-How many players do you play with?

4 players, sometimes 5.

-How long do you roelplay for outside of combat?

Again, that depends on the DM and the adventure. I'm guessing 20 or so minutes between encounters.

-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?

I'll bite: sometimes, yes. Counting squares and planning moves often has a very 'Descent' feel to it. But that's a concession we're more than willing to make for a smooth tactical combat system. If it took board-game aesthetics to encourage such amazingly fun teamwork and group interplay to this game, then I welcome our board-game overlords!

-Do you change any of the rules?

Some tinkering has been tried with monsters (more damage, fewer HPs), but since that appears to have been embraced by WotC going forward, I'd say no.

 

[Mallus]

Do your players make a "background" for their characters?

Some do.

Do they care what place in the world their character "comes from"?

Occasionally.

Is the character's race taken as anything more than a packet of stat bonuses and special abilities?

Depends. For my current character, the answer's 'yes'. I had a blast making up the details of his race (I co-created the setting).

Could you have a character that is "afraid of fire"?

Why not? While my current PC fears nothing, has a borderline obsession with fireworks. Also, he loved Pernod. And writes highly-eroticized labor propaganda.

Or that "hates dwarves", or has a mortal enemy from his past, or anything like that?

One PC in our group is in love with his sister who was kidnapped by air-pirates. Another is a Marxist dwarf who hate the bourgeoisie.

For my players, answers would be "no way", "hell no", "huh???", and "dude seriously stop being weird". There's the difference.

Not to my group. Some people enjoy the game with the kinds of embellishments I've described, some couldn't care less. But either way, it's all still role-playing.

...is any of your players aware of the difference between "character knowledge" and "player knowledge" in any way, shape or form, and would they laugh in your face if you tried to explain it?

Yes on one and no on two.

Yes, the difference between player and character knowledge is important to some of our players, because to them, part of the fun comes from the added challenge of problem-solving through the fictional persona they've created. Other players just care about overcoming the challenge.

And we'd never laugh at a player for the way they enjoy the game. Unless they came to a session in costume, or bored us with too much exposition about their character's daddy-issues and chestnut hair...

 

[Harr]

Hm, just because you got my wheels turning on the topic of long combats and cutting them short... I mentioned making combats about something OTHER than just killing the monsters. But maybe you're thinking 'how'.

Ok. Have you watched the movie "The Gamers"?

If you haven't, then do Watching that movie and then thinking "Why does that game feel so incredibly awesome and mine doesn't...?" Was what first alerted me to coming up with the "narrative out" for combats which I almost always use nowadays for the "big" fights.

I won't spoil anything, but basically "The Gamers" follows a party of PCs through a campaign. The interesting thing here is how they resolve the combats. There are definitely several combats that are taken on just by hacking and slashing through them... But the really interesting ones, the really big ones are all resolved not by cutting up the enemies, but by one of the PCs making that one leap of logic that lets them take that one crucial decisive action that will decisively win the day. Seriously watch it and you'll see what I mean


*** SPOILERS FOR KOTS IN AN EXAMPLE ***


As an example, when I re-ran Keep on the Shadowfell, instead of the objective being just "Kill Kalarel", what I had was four black candles set up around Kalarel. The candles had pretty high AC to hit to but any kind of damaging hit would knock them down. Anybody making an attack to knock down a candle would receive a free Opportunity attack from Kalarel (even at range).

The way it worked was if even ONE candle was knocked down at any time in the fight, the ritual was ruined. When Kalarel saw this he would immediately try to escape via another teleporting ritual. If all FOUR candles were knocked down, Kalarel would lose all the arcane power he had to the sucking vortex.

- If after 40 minutes of play all candles are still standing (extremely unlikely), the ritual is complete, the PCs black out and awaken in a desolate blackened ruin.

- If after 40 minutes of play at least one candle but not all are knocked down, Kalarel succeeds in teleporting himself out and escaping, but the party has succeeded in ruining the ritual.

- If before 40 minutes are up the party knocks all the 4 candles down, then the portal closes, Kalarel is stripped of his powers and despairs, starts crying and begs the PCs for mercy.

What does this do? It sets up a very easy and very fast way for the PCs to succeed at their objective that doesn't involve whittling the big bad down to 0. They can still do that if they want, but if they take too long, they can fail.

In the actual game they were not able to knock the four candles down; the combat was 20 minutes in before they knocked down the first one, and only three were down before the time was up. They saved Winterhaven but Kalarel got away.

Now, the point is that this is the kind of thing that 1) is SO easy and fast to set up, 2) is well within the rules and scope of 4e, and 3) is fun and makes the players feel oh-so-clever (even though it's so obvious... but it being obvious is the whole idea, you WANT them to know, so they can take action and wrap it up fast).

This may not be your cup of tea of course. But it's what I do... And no I don't consider any of this "roleplaying" LOL

 

[Harr]

One PC in our group is in love with his sister who was kidnapped by air-pirates. Another is a Marxist dwarf who hate the bourgeoisie.

Wow, hey, that's great there guy.

So you DO roleplay. And you DO understand the difference between when I say "We don't roleplay" and when I say "But we do enjoy solving puzzles and challenges".

You do understand perfectly and you have understood it from the beginning, as you just beautifully illustrated. See I had misunderstood your original remark "That's what my friends call roleplaying" As you thinking that what I was describing was actually what you and your friends called roleplaying... turns out you were just spontaneously verbalizing a random sentence.

So I don't have to explain it any more, and I didn't have to explain it in the first place even. Which is good.

Edit -> Btw. Even if you don't actually understand the difference yet... and even if you post something that implies that the two things are still the same to you... I'm sure by now the OP and everyone reading here else does understand fully, so that's as far as I'm gonna take this. Good day

 

[Mallus]

Wow, hey, that's great there guy.

It is.

So you DO roleplay.

Sure!

And you DO understand the difference between when I say "We don't roleplay" and when I say "But we do enjoy solving puzzles and challenges".

Well, I understand that your friends and mine play differently. But I'm unclear as to why you wouldn't call what your group does 'role-playing'.

... turns out you were just spontaneously verbalizing a random sentence.

To be honest, I do that a lot...

Btw. Even if you don't actually understand the difference yet... and even if you post something that implies that the two things are still the same to you...

Of course I understand the difference... but I think role-playing is rightly thought of as a broad category that includes everything from deep-immersion to no-immersion play.

Good day

Peace out!

 

[Jack99]

-What level are you?
My players are level 14

-How long do you play for?
5 hours per week

-How many combats do you play?
Varies. From 0-5. Average around 2 or 3.

-How long do they take?
Easy ones take around 30 minutes, normal ones around 45-60 minutes, hardcore stuff up to 2 hours.

-How many players do you play with?
5 players

-How long do you roelplay for outside of combat?
Roleplay takes up anywhere from 30 to 100% of our sessions

-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?
Not to me.

-Do you change any of the rules?
I have played around with hit points/damage ratio. We were fine with 4e rules as they are, but as a DM, my optimal choice is a little quicker combats. So I fixed that.

Cheers