[WotC's recent insanity] I think I've Figured It Out

[fumetti]

What portion of players paid the slightest attention to that rule? [Becoming a lord and ruling a dominion.]
I'm certain there were more than a few, including yourself. But I played in numerous groups back in the day and, without exception, encumbrance got more attention than the by the book presumptions for lordship and the like. (And encumbrance was pretty well ignored)

I for one lived to become a lord and have a dominion! It was a great moment in my BECMI campaign to gain a dominion and rule it. It became about 1/4 to 1/3 of my play for the rest of that campaign (about 10 more levels).

And sad is the campaign that ignores encumbrance. Encumbrance provided a great deal of challenge, especially at high levels! Killing the dragon was easy compared to hauling all that loot back home! We had to get a wagon train, and bring dozens of soldiers to protect it. The trip home became as much an adventure as going in.

 

[fumetti]

Bollocks! 4e, with skill challenges, has more non-combat support than any previous edition, along with a DMG pushing them hard. Now if you're talking about 4e modules, you have a point...

Nowhere in the previous editions will you find a passage suggesting to simply summarize what happens between the encounters.

4E does just that. (And then gives some basic mechnics for travel, etc. just in case.)

To say 4E "has more non-combat support than any previous edition" is flat ludicrous. How many 4E publications are dedicated to non-combat? None. 1E had two. 2E had several. And BECMI had it running all thru the Companion, Master, Immortal, and Gazetteer publications.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Nowhere in the previous editions will you find a passage suggesting to simply summarize what happens between the encounters.

4E does just that.

Really?

I am not a fan or player of 4e, but I find that difficult to believe. (And I am not calling you a liar, not by any means, I just can't imagine an edition that would do this.)

To say 4E "has more non-combat support than any previous edition" is flat ludicrous. How many 4E publications are dedicated to non-combat? None. 1E had two. 2E had several. And BECMI had it running all thru the Companion, Master, Immortal, and Gazetteer publications.

This is true.


RC

 

[fumetti]

A DM tells the players what their PCs perceive, allows them to act, then describes the consequences of their actions. RPGs have been like this since the 70s.

I think the issue here is how each edition's rules structure addresses it.

 

[fumetti]

Really?

I am not a fan or player of 4e, but I find that difficult to believe. (And I am not calling you a liar, not by any means, I just can't imagine an edition that would do this.)

It's in either the DMG or the Rules Compendium. I can't remember. At the beginning of the section about travel.

In my mind, to summarize the what occurs between combat encounters is going away from what rpgs are about. It goes from players creating a story to players just showing up for the fights.

 

[MrMyth]

This gets to the heart of what I've been talking about.

If the DM sets up a skill challenge, then it's a predetermined encounter that the party must get past. It is not organic. It is not chosen by the players, or the effect of players' choices. This restricts the "sandbox" nature of RPGs. It in effect becomes yet another tunnel-vision game.

Except... isn't that essentially saying that any prep the DM does, either in the form of mechanical or narrative challenges, is a problem?

I just find that silly. Let's take skill challenges out of it entirely. Is it really a problem if the DM decides, before the session, that if the PCs want the magic sword, they need to get it from the castle vault - either via violence, stealth, or smooth talking? You really are suggesting it is better that the DM make no decisions at all before the session, and when the PCs say, "We want a magic sword", he has to make everything up on the fly?

If you aren't saying that... then why are skill challenges an issue compared to everything else? They are just a new way to represent the same challenges we've always had. Does the fact that getting the sword now consists of either a combat or a skill challenge really make the game less organic?

The "sandbox" nature is driven by what choices the players have. Skill Challenges don't affect that, provided they are prepared or used in the same way as anything else - as an option the PCs have to resolve different scenarios. The PCs need to get past the goblin camp. Do they fight them? (Combat) Do they sneak past? (Skill challenge) Do they simply go somewhere else? (Change of situation) Do they go recruit allies from other tribes? (Skill challenge) Do they challenge the goblin leader to single combat? (Combat)

The fact that some of those options include combat or skill challenges doesn't say anything about how restrictive the overall scenario is. The DM can set up several predetermined skill challenges for an obstacle, or a single one designed to be flexible. Or can make up new ones on the fly - honestly, I've seen skill challenges used exceptionally well in sandbox games by giving the DM a potentially easy way to resolve unexpected complications.

I guess I'm saying that it's best if player choices should effect the existence of a skill challenge.

I'm in favor of a game story where most skill challenges and encounters occur as a response to unpredictable player actions. 4E seems structured the other way around.

But of course, I might be wrong.

I mean, I can't say how it is in every game. But I've certainly had plenty where a skill challenge has been one way of resolving an encounter, and thus its existence has indeed been determined by player choices. I've even seen the same thing in LFR mods and WotC adventures. I'm pretty sure I've seen that exact advice in the DMGs themselves.

That's really my curiousity here - you make commentary on 4E structuring itself in a certain way. Do you have any actual quotes from the rulebooks that you feel are encouraging this style of play?

The 4E core rulebooks, as well as the Essential paperbacks thus far, read as if they are specifically designed for the Encounters program and not a traditional long-term campaign.

Otherwise, there would be less emphasis on elaborate combat encounters and more on noncombat experiences. Anyone whose first DnD experience is 4E -- and they don't have DnD veterans around to explain things -- is going to see DnD as a combat strategy game with summarized "filler" inbetween the encounters.

Absolutely, a veteran player can use 4E as a great complex long-term campaign with oodles of noncombat events. But that player will be drawing from past products and past experiences to carry it out--NOT from the 4E material itself.

Again, this seems in absolute conflict with the rulebooks, which most definitely encourage long-term campaigns and present options, advice and encouragement for non-combat experiences. We've even got rules for moving to an entirely non-combat game and guidelines on handing out XP for PCs resolving things solely through roleplaying!

And you know what? I've seen players for whom 4E has been their first experience with the game. And they've dived into the RP just as much as any, in the way all new players do - tending not to know any better, and just sorta expecting the game to keep up with their imagination.

Can 4E be played as a "combat strategy game with summarized 'filler' inbetween the encounters"? Sure, I suppose so. But I don't think it is the default of the game, I don't think it is the way most people play it, and I don't think it is encouraged by anything in the rules themselves.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The 4E core rulebooks, as well as the Essential paperbacks thus far, read as if they are specifically designed for the Encounters program and not a traditional long-term campaign.

Otherwise, there would be less emphasis on elaborate combat encounters and more on noncombat experiences. Anyone whose first DnD experience is 4E -- and they don't have DnD veterans around to explain things -- is going to see DnD as a combat strategy game with summarized "filler" inbetween the encounters.

If you'd asked me to describe AD&D back in the 90s, I'd have used almost exactly that description other than to throw in that it was about a long term game of hack and slash. (In the 80s it was more about tomb robbing - but with the death of the XP for GP rules, hack and slash became more dominant). I mean, other than performing stereotypical actions, monster-slaying was the way to gain exps.

If I read through the 4e PHB (not the best written book), I see highly competent action movie heroes who can turn their hand to anything. If I read through the 2e PHB I see a system where the characters are crippled outside combat (the drawback to NWPs - if NWPs allow something, if you don't have the NWP you can't). And a system where details like the type of armour someone's wearing vs your type of weapon matters. In short, something heavily combat-centric that actively discourages you trying to do things it doesn't outline in detail. 4e on the other hand is combat centric but encourages you and rewards you with experience points for things you try outside combat.

Absolutely, a veteran player can use 4E as a great complex long-term campaign with oodles of noncombat events. But that player will be drawing from past products and past experiences to carry it out--NOT from the 4E material itself.

Or y'know, from world building and imagination supported by the rules. Note that I say supported by and not constrained by - which is what too much simulation leads to. Wandering Monster tables imply huge amounts about the local ecology. So do ration rates and most other such tables (and let's not get on to some of the more obscure tables).

I for one lived to become a lord and have a dominion! It was a great moment in my BECMI campaign to gain a dominion and rule it. It became about 1/4 to 1/3 of my play for the rest of that campaign (about 10 more levels).

You mean the random "You get a keep at level X" in experience tables like the fighter's? The sort of rules that hard-coded the gameworld and went even further to stereotype the classes, thus inhibiting roleplaying even more than strong yet incoherent alignment rules did?

And sad is the campaign that ignores encumbrance. Encumbrance provided a great deal of challenge, especially at high levels! Killing the dragon was easy compared to hauling all that loot back home! We had to get a wagon train, and bring dozens of soldiers to protect it. The trip home became as much an adventure as going in.

Oh, lovely. A pixel-bitch.

Mod Edit: Ladies and gentlemen, name-calling may work on the schoolyard playground, but we have a dim view of it here. I suggest you not stoop to this kind of rhetoric, as it'll get you booted from the thread. ~Umbran

Or did you have serious chance of failure for this trip home? And no magic items like Handy Haversacks and Portable Holes?

Nowhere in the previous editions will you find a passage suggesting to simply summarize what happens between the encounters.

4E does just that. (And then gives some basic mechnics for travel, etc. just in case.)

I suppose you make your characters roleplay going to the toilet as well? From memory, the 4e advice is something like "If there's no chance of failure, cut it out".

To say 4E "has more non-combat support than any previous edition" is flat ludicrous. How many 4E publications are dedicated to non-combat? None. 1E had two. 2E had several. And BECMI had it running all thru the Companion, Master, Immortal, and Gazetteer publications.

You mean the way 4e has it running all through the rules, the DMGs, and the worldbooks? (Especially DarkSun). 4e is therefore a match for BECMI by your own metrics. And that without hardcoding the world building into the rulebooks.

As for "publications dedicated to non-combat", that's because 4e is not a simulationist game. Books like the Wilderness Survival Guide are interesting pieces, but high-simulationist. There are more non-combat rules in both 4e and 1e than there are in Dread. This doesn't mean that they are more focussed on non-combat matters than Dread. If I actually want simulationism, I bypass AD&D and reach straight for GURPS. 4e focusses are much more narrative and on the story. Try reading the DMG2 - IMO the best DMG ever (and indicating a very different game from the Gygaxian one).

For that matter, when did the mere existance of warehouse filling supplements dictate the focus of a game. If we go by core rules then AD&D is almost literally Dungeons and Dragons (well, wandering monsters). Skills in the PHB/DMG/MM in AD&D are crippled in 2e and almost exclusive to the thief in 1e. 4e actually has rules for them rather than pixelbitches the way the members of the so-called OSR would have us do. On the other hand, as I've mentioned, 2e has rules like weapon type vs armour type.

 

[Neonchameleon]

This gets to the heart of what I've been talking about.

If the DM sets up a skill challenge, then it's a predetermined encounter that the party must get past. It is not organic. It is not chosen by the players, or the effect of players' choices. This restricts the "sandbox" nature of RPGs. It in effect becomes yet another tunnel-vision game.

Welcome to the 1980s and the Dragonlance Saga. Also to hexcrawling - seriously, the Isle of Dread may have been officially a sandbox, but because the damn place was so big and we weren't trying to civilise it or otherwise really alter it then the island itself was barely affected by players' choices. It was just discrete encounters. As was any 'non-living' dungeon, of which I've seen more than a few in all editions.

I guess I'm saying that it's best if player choices should effect the existence of a skill challenge.

It is and they do. The reason I love skill challenges is that to me they are a superb mechanic for evaluating Daft PC Plans ™ - very easy to whip up on the fly, provide an appropriate amount of difficulty for both the plan and individual actions, and indication for temporary reverses (and how much suspicion/how many mistakes PCs can attract before the house of cards comes down) and take a decent amount of time to resolve - long enough for the players to get their teeth into and short enough to keep the game's pace up.

I'm in favor of a game story where most skill challenges and encounters occur as a response to unpredictable player actions. 4E seems structured the other way around.

But of course, I might be wrong.

That certainly isn't how I use them. But then I use DMG advice rather than WoTC modules (and have been planning to write my own guidance for them). The published skill challenges as opposed to the skill challenge rules make me feel like I'm visiting a zoo; those animals belong out in the wild. What's written down in them is too nailed down for what is essentially an excellent improvised tool that fits in the gap between skill/ability check and session-consuming (or longer) quest.

 

[fumetti]

I'm not a fan of social mechanics, either, and when I run 3e/4e, I leave it to players whether they want to roll social skill checks. I'm happy talking things out exclusively.

But that can contradict the concept of playing a character. If the player must "talk out" the social scenario, then he's really using his own charisma/skills and not the character's.

Not that I'm saying every conversation should be dice-rolled. But the mechanics need to be there for the sake of role-playing a character.

If my character has an 18 charisma and my DM thinks I'm an idiot, odds are disproportionately against my character ever being successful if I try to talk it out rather than skill-check it.

 

[MrMyth]

It's in either the DMG or the Rules Compendium. I can't remember. At the beginning of the section about travel.

In my mind, to summarize the what occurs between combat encounters is going away from what rpgs are about. It goes from players creating a story to players just showing up for the fights.

Hmm. Let's see what I can dig up.

DMG, pg 20: "Over the course of a session of D&D, the game shifts in and out of five basic modes—setup, exploration, conversation, encounter, and passing time. The five modes are also five different kinds of tasks or activities the characters engage in during their adventures."

"In exploration mode, the characters move through the adventure setting, making decisions about their course and perhaps searching for traps, treasure, or clues. The game spends a lot of game time in exploration mode. It’s what usually fills the space between encounters. It usually ends when an encounter begins."

"Describe the environment. Outline the options available to the characters by telling them where they are and what’s around them. ... Listen. Once you’re done describing the area, the players tell you what their characters want to do. ... Narrate the results of the characters’ actions."

So, that seems to say that exploration is a big part of the game, and central to the process of players making the decisions on what their characters will do.

Now, on the next page, we do find the section you seem to be thinking of:

DMG, pg 21: "The game has a rhythm and flow, and the action in the game is interspersed with lulls. These lulls are like the places where a movie fades to black and comes up again with the understanding that some time has passed. Don’t give these situations any more time than the movies do. When a rest period passes uneventfully, tell the players that and move on. Don’t make the players spend time discussing which character cooks what for dinner (unless the kind of group you are playing with finds this useful for building characters). Gloss over the mundane, unexciting details and get back to the heroic action as quickly as possible."

Hmm. That doesn't actually say to "simply summarize what happens between the encounters." It instead says that you can gloss over details like what is being cooked for dinner.

Note as well that it doesn't say that all rest periods pass without incident. Instead, when they are uneventful, it recommends skipping past them.

And it even has a disclaimer that you can include these details if it is a style the party enjoys.

In the end, there is a very big difference between "don't obsess over minute details" and "summarize and skip past everything that occurs out of combat."

I think the first, which the books actually says, is decent advice. I think the second is, indeed, something to avoid - and, fortunately, seems entirely absent from the 4E DMG.

If you've got an actual quote of where it says that, feel free to provide it, but I certainly don't see anything along those lines - and plenty of advice that is the exact opposite.