Something that 4e's designers overlooked? -aka is KM correct?

[TerraDave]

The difference, of course, is that if players act like they're tough with first level PCs, they die. Period. Slash. Roll a new character.

.

Unless they get their sleep spell off first.

You quoted the last part of my post, but not the first line: my players actually do discuss this stuff. Some times at annoying length. Low level play in 4E is closer to mid level in later editions...but otherwise I don't really agree with much in your post. The strategic considerations are there, and 4E, being almost a wargame after all rewards intelligent play as much as any past edition.

But, my point you did quote is that I have seen plenty of bold play in all editions. It is ultimitaly a DM decision about how much he brings the hammer down, or, gods forbid, fudges (see the other thread on that). And its up to the players to factor that in as they get ready to kick down the door; maybe the players like making new charecters.

 

[Mark]

The strategic considerations are there, and 4E, being almost a wargame after all rewards intelligent play as much as any past edition.

There are different types of wargames, of course, some that do tactical planning well (like skirmish miniatures games) and others that do strategic planning well (big picture board wargames, for instance). The further D&D has gotten from its roots, the less it does the second well. I don't think this discussion/thread has been about whether or not D&D current does the former well. That might require a separate thread.

 

[Odhanan]

What's so smart about careful resource management? Why is taking a chance with limited resources stupid?

Because you are trusting chance to provide you with the outcome you wish for. It sure may be bold, courageous and strong-headed, but smart, on a tactical level? I don't think you can really make that case, all other considerations/variables being equal.

If your suggestion is that carefully making sure you always have the resources you need to win a fight is the only way to be smart, I'm certain you're wrong. Using the resources you have to win a fight which it looks like you should lose is equally clever. I don't want want most fights to be where my clever use of resources makes them foregone conclusions - I want fights where I don't have the resources that make it easy but I still have to find a way to use the resources I have available to win.

That's not what I was saying. Seems to me you are seeing an "either/or" dichotomy there that I simply did not imply. It's not, to me, a question of whether you want to "always make sure you have the resources to win", it's a question of providing players with strategic choices that impact game play and make it both more varied, versatile and thus, interesting, to me. It's about characters confronted with a sample situation where they have limited resources and have a choice between postponing the fight or confronting their enemy with what they got. Nobody's making a choice for them, and indeed, either one of these choices will bring interesting developments in the game as it occurs.

 

[avin]

1st level fourth edition characters are buffed compared to former editions.

what has been lost, in my opinion, is the ability to narrate the path leading to a hero... with the POL philosophy if you are level one you are already a hero.

i don't like it... (but I can deal with this and play it anyway).

 

[Mallus]

1st level fourth edition characters are buffed compared to former editions.

So are their opponents. Look how many HP non-minion kobolds.

Conversely, no low-level 4e character is as effective and terrifying to foes as a 1e magic-user equipped with sleep or stinking cloud.

 

[Bluenose]

Because you are trusting chance to provide you with the outcome you wish for. It sure may be bold, courageous and strong-headed, but smart, on a tactical level? I don't think you can really make that case, all other considerations/variables being equal.

I'm not trusting chance at all. Chance can be against me as well as for me, and if it's overwhelmingly against me it doesn't matter how prepared I am. What I'm trusting is my ability to identify, create, or force an opportunity to turn the fight my way. And that is about playing smart.

 

[Odhanan]

I'm not trusting chance at all. Chance can be against me as well as for me, and if it's overwhelmingly against me it doesn't matter how prepared I am. What I'm trusting is my ability to identify, create, or force an opportunity to turn the fight my way. And that is about playing smart.

Well what you asked was: "What's so smart about careful resource management? Why is taking a chance with limited resources stupid?"

So. You are "taking a chance", i.e. trusting chance. How prepared you are will affect the probabilities of outcome for the fight ahead. In this regard, neglecting ways to affect probabilities of outcomes when you can, so that the odds end up being in your favor, is just not smart.

Further, you can strategically prepare for a fight AND trust in your tactical ability to deal with the resulting fight as it occurs. There's no either/or to me, here. It's an "and".

 

[Henry]

If I might ask: How is ANY of this important to the fanbase, since Original, Advanced, Basic, 3E and 4E D&D are not wargames, aren't supposed to be wargames, and tried for the first five or six years of its existance to distance itself from being "just another wargame?"

Using strategy, yes -- I can see the value of that as being important to quite a few different kinds of games; however, trying to use elements that emulate wargames kind of defeats the purpose of what the original designers were trying to do in the first place -- using wargaming-rooted rules to emulate a certain type of genre. Conan, Fafhrd, and Elric couldn't on their own fly like birds, cause earthquakes, raise the dead, and transform into dragons - yet AD&D characters could, quite regularly, and use buff-scry-teleport tricks that would give Robert Howard or Fritz Leiber pause had they ever seen them. (Well, Fritz might have seen them later in the 70's, but I'm reasonably sure he didn't have buff-scry-teleport in mind when he was writing Mouser and Fafhrd stories.)

 

[KidSnide]

What's so smart about careful resource management? Why is taking a chance with limited resources stupid? If your suggestion is that carefully making sure you always have the resources you need to win a fight is the only way to be smart, I'm certain you're wrong. Using the resources you have to win a fight which it looks like you should lose is equally clever. I don't want want most fights to be where my clever use of resources makes them foregone conclusions - I want fights where I don't have the resources that make it easy but I still have to find a way to use the resources I have available to win.

The question isn't "what's so smart about careful resource management?" but "what's so fun about careful resource management?" And the "what so fun" question has two aspects.

(1) Does the RPG have a good resource management sub-game? In other words, are there interesting decisions to be made regarding resource management?

(2) Do the players want to play a resource management game while they role-play.

The first is going to depend on the game. Resource management was certainly more important in earlier editions of D&D, although the decision making becomes uninteresting if optimial strategies render most of the options obsolete.

The second question is going to be a matter of taste. If my D&D consists of an adventuring party who are professional dungeoneers who try to get maximal loot for minimal risk, then resource management is important and part of the game. If my D&D is primarily concerned with accomplishing non-resource quest objectives (uncover the evil biship, escape Gates Pass, kill Orcus, etc...), then mandatory resource management can get in the way of what (for that party at least) is the point of the game.

-KS

 

[Odhanan]

If I might ask: How is ANY of this important to the fanbase, since Original, Advanced, Basic, 3E and 4E D&D are not wargames, aren't supposed to be wargames, and tried for the first five or six years of its existance to distance itself from being "just another wargame?"

If you're counting Original, Advanced D&D as criteria for determining who's a D&D fan and who isn't, and it certainly looks like you are, then I'm definitely a fan of D&D, and the strategic management of the environment and resources definitely are important to me, myself, and I concur!

Now, I don't think it would be fair to consider the topic as some sort of dichotomy between "wargame" and "RPG". D&D benefits from a host of different influences, more or less prevalent as editions went along, and wargames certainly are part of them. To me, these strategic decisions do matter in game play. I can understand if you don't care for them, but I do care for them myself, and am still playing a role playing game, not a wargame as far as I'm concerned.