D&D 4E How did 4e take simulation away from D&D?

[Herremann the Wise]

I don't know about how good the sweet spot is in PF, but the thing that it doesn't address at all is PLOT POWER.

Casters in all pre-4e editions had enormous plot power. This can't be rectified by slowing down casting in combat as you've suggested earlier nor by the PF method of buffing up non-casters combat power and toning down meta-magic. In fact PF entirely missed the point, it wasn't combat power of caster classes which was the issue (though it is AN issue and may be less so in PF). The issue is the fundamental assumption that casting spells can accomplish virtually any arbitrary effect whereas if you don't cast spells you can have loads of ways to slice things with your steely knives, but you'll never ever leave mundane hotel. The casters get a toolbox that has a tool for every possible situation, the fighter gets a ginsu knife. No matter how sharp it is he's not pounding nails with it or screwing in screws etc.

Hmmm... I think in some ways you overstate the dominating plot power of magic and undersell the fighter a little here (as he is still run by a player who has a say in such things) but your overall point is valid. A good DM can and possibly needs to moderate the natural inclination of the system. For myself, one of the major gripes I have is with 3e spells doing things better than the classes who's toes they are treading on. I think "Ritualizing" a whole slab of 3e magic would really allevaite a lot of these issues.

Basically the 4e devs had a few choices:

1) They could have nerfed magic down to the point where it was nothing but a combat tool on a par with a sword.

2) They could have increased the abilities of mundane characters so that even at 1st level they were as fantastical as casters.

3) They could have made the consequences of magic so harsh that while it was potent it was close to impossible to use.

4) They could have invested all magic in items, eliminated restrictions on their use by class, and done away with combat/utility spell casting entirely.

In fact 4e uses a bit of all these options. Magic is somewhat reduced in effectiveness and it is more focused on combat uses. Mundane characters do gain more capabilities which are more on par with spells. Really potent magic with lots of plot power is moved to rituals, difficult and expensive but also open to all classes. Items generally have no explicit restrictions on who can use them.

I think the designers succeeded very well in what they were trying to achieve. Not quite to my preference but no D&D edition has been perfect for me - as much as I have played and enjoyed all of them since AD&D.

Anyway, yeah, that is getting off the topic. It does help to illuminate the reasons for the differences in edition design. Notice that the improvement of non-magical capabilities is what seems to generally stick in some people's craws. I don't really think it has much to do with simulationism.

For me I love the options and I think the vast majority of powers (particularly martial) are excellent. I'd just use a different mechanic to at-will/encounter/daily if I could.

Even the way healing works in 4e is really a boon to non-casters. Healing magic is no longer as central to the game, and at least the front line melee types get their hit points back at the start of the day. Creating a separate category of 'physical damage' would just send them back to school again.

Not necessarily. Hit points still get fully restored but you are carrying some physical damage that could not be fully tended by the "mundane" healer or the divine healer didn't think it needed an expensive ritual to heal something that a couple of days would fix. Kind of like a 4e adventurer getting their hps back but not getting all their surges. I think this is fairly reasonable, if not quite to everyone's taste.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[pemerton]

But briefly, it is my contention that the kinds of design issues here rearing their hydra heads, are symptoms of collapsing orthogonal modeling dimensions into too few.

<snip>

4E is very encouraging and discouraging at the same time on this question, because the removal of craft and profession "skills" from the skill checks is a necessary prerequisite for this kind of thinking. They just didn't carry it to the next logical conclusion and ask how those things could be modeled outside of skills.

Sticking to my theme of more-coherent-development-of-what's-already-there, it would be helpful to see more advice on how to build race, paragon paths and epic destinies into skill challenge resolution - mechanically, at present, these are confined almost entirely to combat powers and features - as well as better advice on how rituals and the expenditure of money should be seen as fitting in.

I don't have any handy suggestion at present on how to introduce significant stakes into the decision to use these elements in a skill challenge context - that's what the designers get paid for! - but this could at least be the beginning of an attempt to bring in extra mechanical dimensions somewhat analagous to circles, resources etc.

 

[pemerton]

In terms of my own position which this thread has helped me articulate, I would say that the big shift here is the "black box" design philosophy that Mike Mearls talked about on a D&D podcast (I can't remember which one so please excuse the lack of reference). If the end result matches up with what you are after, it doesn't really matter what was in the black box that produced the result. In other words if the process that produces the desired result is simple and easy to use, then that is good enough as it will keep gamers focused on the game rather than the mechanics that make it happen. Cool, fine and dandy. However, the simulationist picks apart the black box, sees how the process does not follow the perceived, logical "reality" of what the action is "supposed" to be simulating and comes to the conclusion that the process does not make sense - even if the result is suitable. For me, I love seeing good mechanics that mesh really well with the flavour they are attempting to represent.

For me, this is a good description of purist-for-system simulationist priorities.

I think the three classic RPGs that really support this sort of simulationist play are Traveller, Runequest and Rolemaster. Runequest is perhaps the most simulationist of them all, as there is almost no point at which metagame considerations can intrude to disrupt the mechanical modelling of ingame causal logic: there are no choices like feat or skill development, for example, and decisions about how much to parry vs how much to attack are encoded in the parry and attack skill percentages rather than made by the player. Traveller is nearly as simulationist as Runequest, but does allow the player to make choices about parry vs attack in melee combat - but melee combat is probably a fairly small part of typical Traveller play.

Rolemaster is noticeably less simulationist in its character build rules, because the player gets to make choices about allocating points to skills which don't necessarily model any ingame causal process. (Though one can interpret it that way if desired - the points allocation models the PC's learning.) And choices about attack vs parry, and similar choices in spell casting - which come up all the time in typical fantasy adventure play - mean that the simulationist mechanics create room for a bit of a metagame wedge to be inserted.

I think that 3E has a lot more places where the metagame wedge can be inserted - the whole system-mastery issue in relation to character build, for example (which is quite different from Rolemaster, where it's hard to go wrong provided you put big numbers in the skills you want your PC to use). And hit points are pretty black-boxy to me (surely no one is suggesting that they just measure physical meat, such that a high level fighter has as much "meat" as a huge dragon).

But there is little doubt that 3E does prioritise this simulationist ideal, of using the system to exhibit the ingame causal processes, to a much higher extent than does 4e.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sticking to my theme of more-coherent-development-of-what's-already-there, it would be helpful to see more advice on how to build race, paragon paths and epic destinies into skill challenge resolution - mechanically, at present, these are confined almost entirely to combat powers and features - as well as better advice on how rituals and the expenditure of money should be seen as fitting in.

I don't have any handy suggestion at present on how to introduce significant stakes into the decision to use these elements in a skill challenge context - that's what the designers get paid for! - but this could at least be the beginning of an attempt to bring in extra mechanical dimensions somewhat analagous to circles, resources etc.

I think it was always intended, though not really explicit in DMG1, that successes or other effects, could result from things other than skill checks. I recall granting successes for use of powers, rituals, and even gold in some of the early SCs I ran.

It seems to me part of the problem with SC presentation is that the devs apparently assumed DMs would understand that the SC mechanics were intended to supplement and reinforce a narrative, not replace it with mechanics. Apparently this was an unwarranted assumption, as evidenced by the vast number of "it is nothing but a few die rolls that the players can just spam their best skill on" threads. All of those evidence a complete failure of the concept to be communicated properly, and a peculiar tendency of gamers to assume that where there is a rule that rule is the last word on a subject.

Anyway, it always seemed obvious to me that, while skill checks are usually the backbone of SC resolution, the narrative is the framework within which everything is set and if a ritual will move the party towards the goal then it is worth successes. My rule of thumb has always been that using a daily resource is at least worth a success or should provide some significant ongoing benefit, and an encounter resource is generally worth a decent bonus or some kind of advantage. Players can potentially use at-will type resources as well in some situations but they're simply going to sub for a skill check when they make sense.

In terms of other dimensions, characters with appropriate relationships and backgrounds can certainly find the challenge to be shifted in their favor. If you know an excellent apothecary then enlisting him to help you with the "save the king from the poison" skill challenge can shift it to "find the antidote", while being an expert ritualist might shift it to "find the proper ritual magic to cure him". Other things work to a lesser degree, having a background in studying the undead might simply provide a +2 skill bonus to a check to identify the necrotic properties of the poison or to the antidote making checks (thus maybe favoring that approach to solving the challenge).

Obviously a lot of fairly simple SCs aren't going to engage a lot of different aspects of the participants beyond raw skill, but any challenge can potentially do that. My feeling is that a lot of the example SCs published in books are simply too lacking in context to really illustrate this well. We don't know background information about the PCs or the world or the NPCs they interact with.

One thing that would concern me about a lot more official mechanical infrastructure being added to SCs would be that it would make the job of composing it all together successfully into a working challenge might be a lot harder. The more knobs and levers there are, the more they can be used inappropriately. DMs will also apparently glom onto any example and assume it is the one and only canonical use for that mechanic.

 

[pemerton]

It seems to me part of the problem with SC presentation is that the devs apparently assumed DMs would understand that the SC mechanics were intended to supplement and reinforce a narrative, not replace it with mechanics. Apparently this was an unwarranted assumption, as evidenced by the vast number of "it is nothing but a few die rolls that the players can just spam their best skill on" threads. All of those evidence a complete failure of the concept to be communicated properly, and a peculiar tendency of gamers to assume that where there is a rule that rule is the last word on a subject.

I agree with the rest of your post. I just wanted to say, in relation to this, that there are actual examples of well-written rules text for SC-style mechanics (eg HeroQuest rev ed, Maelstrom Storytelling) which they could have borrowed/learned from, instead of leaving it as an exercise for the reader. And also, what you describe as a peculiar tendency of gamers, I tend to attribute to a more particular tendency of long-time D&D players to read the rules of 4e assuming that they are basically all about providing the same experience as 3E or AD&D might have.

For WotC to write rules which can only be understood if you're familiar with a range of not-entirely-mainstream games is pretty unforgiveable, given their audience.

 

[Balesir]

For me, this is a good description of purist-for-system simulationist priorities.

I think the three classic RPGs that really support this sort of simulationist play are Traveller, Runequest and Rolemaster.

I agree with the 'diagnosis', but I think Rolemaster does purist-for-system fairly poorly. I would add HârnMaster, The Riddle of Steel and the Daredevils/Bushido/Aftermath collection by Charrette and Hume. Plus Chivalry and Sorcery sits alongside Rolemaster, in this context.

Gah - still not allowed to xp you, but I agree with that last post, as well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree with the rest of your post. I just wanted to say, in relation to this, that there are actual examples of well-written rules text for SC-style mechanics (eg HeroQuest rev ed, Maelstrom Storytelling) which they could have borrowed/learned from, instead of leaving it as an exercise for the reader. And also, what you describe as a peculiar tendency of gamers, I tend to attribute to a more particular tendency of long-time D&D players to read the rules of 4e assuming that they are basically all about providing the same experience as 3E or AD&D might have.

For WotC to write rules which can only be understood if you're familiar with a range of not-entirely-mainstream games is pretty unforgiveable, given their audience.

Well, I don't recall any SC mechanics in AD&D that anyone could think the 4e version was intended to emulate... Looking back at my early 1e and before days, and even later up to after 2e core was released DMs generally took what was in the rules as a basis and set of guidelines. Somewhere over the years since around 1996 the attitude and approach seems to have changed considerably and these days it seems like it is anathema to even contemplate deviating from the exact parameters of what is in the book, even when the book strongly suggests such is intended. Can't even say it is a generational thing because I see old-time DMs doing it too. Odd. My own reading of SCs was that it was a very general framework for gaging success and failure embedded in highly narrative segments of play. Obviously they should have emulated some existing explanation of the concept since their own seems to have fallen on deaf ears, yes.

 

[pemerton]

I agree with the 'diagnosis', but I think Rolemaster does purist-for-system fairly poorly. I would add HârnMaster, The Riddle of Steel and the Daredevils/Bushido/Aftermath collection by Charrette and Hume. Plus Chivalry and Sorcery sits alongside Rolemaster, in this context.

Can you say more about Rolemaster?

(Agreed about Bushido, and while I've only played a very little HarnMaster that sounds right too.)

 

[pemerton]

Well, I don't recall any SC mechanics in AD&D that anyone could think the 4e version was intended to emulate

<snip>

My own reading of SCs was that it was a very general framework for gaging success and failure embedded in highly narrative segments of play. Obviously they should have emulated some existing explanation of the concept since their own seems to have fallen on deaf ears, yes.

I was more thinking of remarks that get made from time-to-time that SCs are just an amped-up version of 3E's complex skill checks (which I don't think is right at all), as well as the more general failure of the 4e rulebooks to expressly address the difference between narrative/metagame factors in action resolution and challenge design, vs ingame/fictional factors (with two exceptions - combat encounter building, and languages). The absence of this discussion leads many D&D players to read the rulebooks under the assumption that there is no need to think about the metagame/narrative separately from ingame causal logic (just as they did not draw that distinction when reading 3E or earlier D&D rulebooks) and therefore (in my view) to not realise how some aspects of 4e are meant to work.

And there are other failings as well. For example, it strikes me as completely obvious that Athletics skill is meant to be used in two very different ways - for resolving tactical movement in combat encounters, and for contributing to success/failure in skill challenges. But the entry for Athletics skill in the PHB and the Essentials rules only addresses the first way of using the skill. A similar remark applies to Stealth skill. Acrobatics skill, on the other hand, was treated differently in the PHB (which had the generic notion of "acrobatic stunt") although this has changed in the Essentials presentation.

In short: the rulebooks don't even give a coherent picture of how the same skill set is to be used in two very different mechanical frameworks for action resolution!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Somewhere over the years since around 1996 the attitude and approach seems to have changed considerably and these days it seems like it is anathema to even contemplate deviating from the exact parameters of what is in the book, even when the book strongly suggests such is intended. Can't even say it is a generational thing because I see old-time DMs doing it too. Odd.

I blame the internet. On-line game discussions like these create a group-think, not a consensus, so much as a lack thereof that leaves no refuge beyond wrapping yourself in the Rules As Written.