D&D 4E The "We Can't Roleplay" in 4E Argument

[Neonchameleon]

I think others have nailed it, but here are the problems I have:

1. 4e largely dropped the idea of simulation. Things are a lot more abstract (from square fireballs to fighter powers that just make no sense to warlords being able to talk people up from unconscious). This can harm immersion.
2. The "completely heal after a night's sleep thing" is difficult on a massive number of levels. First the loss of simulation. Second it makes encounter design very restricted. A "simple" fight in 3e could actually matter. Real resources could be drained and people had to actually think and take the challenge seriously. Now it doesn't matter much (use encounter powers, do what you can to get surgeless healing) and it just drags. Try to adapt a 1e or 2e module to 4e. It's a lot of work as a number of encounters just can't do the same thing they did before. Third it just hoses the trope of "you're down to your last bit behind enemy lines, but it's do or die" over more than just a single day. Down and out just doesn't exist unless you strip items.
3. Also, why in the whole world, can only the PCs get up from dropping? Should the NPCs know to finish off the downed characters? This PC/NPC thing is really tricky to deal with. If you are playing "the PCs are ultra-special cool folks blessed by the gods" then it works just fine in the RP. But otherwise you keep hitting all these points of cognitive dissonance.

Is 4e a good game? Certainly. Is it a good RPG? Yes, but it takes either a very good group or very good DM. Us average folks struggle. It's basically the cognitive dissonance.

1: D&D was always an appaling simulation. Never more so IMO than 3e. Just look at hit points and falling damage - or the fact that a highly skilled fighter is no better at parrying or just getting out of the way of swords than a level 1 warrior. And square fireballs come under the heading of "don't sweat the small stuff" - to me what breaks immersion is the massive stuff like the 3.X Wizard spell list. There is no way for a high magic world to really work with the amount of twists a wizard has - and that kills my immersion. 4e on the other hand just consistently goes with Holywood Physics rather than real physics. Which is a simulation - just not of the real world.

2: Completely healing after a night's sleep was an emergent property of 3e - and earlier editions were completely heal after a day's rest in practice - get the cleric to load up on healing spells for the middle day. The reason this changed in 3e was the Wand of Cure Light Wounds being dirt cheap and easy to make, which meant that out of combat you had effectively an unlimited number of hit points. As for down to your last resources behind enemy lines, my rule is an extended rest is an extended rest. If you're dodging patrols, moving every few hours and sleeping with one eye open, that isn't a full extended rest. There, we have your tension back. And because surges are a limited resource, the "nothing" fights drain you if you can't take a real extended rest.

3: NPCs don't normally have combat healers to allow them to spend healing surges while unconscious. One of my more annoying bad guys had a nasty habit of bringing his warriors back from below 0hp - just one of the reasons he was killed with extreme prejudice by the PCs. And I've had a NPC tip a potion of healing down another NPC's throat. But in at least nine fights out of every ten between NPCs, 0hp might not be dead but it's "Not coming back into this fight - the winners might be able to save their own but only after the fight's over".

The encounter as the unit of game play -- expicitly focusing on combat -- was not part of the game until 3e. At the same time, WotC made the primary reward come from combat, rather than riches that could be gained equally by avoiding combat.

Slight correction. XP for GP was relegated in 2e. 3e simply did not add it back in. 2e's bonus XP rewards were instead for behaving like a stereotypical member of your class. Thanks, but no thanks. (The XP rule for GP I think was the best rule in the whole of 1e - but was removed long before WoTC got their hands on D&D).

2e and 3e both have explicit pacifist options for characters...

So does 4e - and Divine Power is far less sidelined than the BoED. Your point? Other than that in all cases these are only technical pacifists of the "I will shed no blood personally - I will just help my friend cut a swathe of destruction" types. (4e also has the Lazy Warlord).

 

[Raven Crowking]

I completely agree with the description of role-playing in the first part of the sentence, but I'm not sure about the caveat. What does "identifying with the fiction" mean?

When a character of mine spits out a pithy one-liner, I sure feel like I'm identifying with that fictional character. I'm writing him or her, performing him or her, and sometime feeling as if I am him or her, roughly all at the same time. Ditto when I colorfully describe a non-speech action, or their mode of dress, or anything else that falls into the category: characterization.

What I mean is that the pithy one-liner may arise from role-playing, and may also lead into or reinforce role-playing, but that a pithy one-liner, in and of itself, is not necessarily role-playing. If that makes sense to you?


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Slight correction. XP for GP was relegated in 2e. 3e simply did not add it back in. 2e's bonus XP rewards were instead for behaving like a stereotypical member of your class. Thanks, but no thanks. (The XP rule for GP I think was the best rule in the whole of 1e - but was removed long before WoTC got their hands on D&D).

Slight correction accepted.

So does 4e - and Divine Power is far less sidelined than the BoED. Your point?

You could easily have included my point in your quote....it was right there!

D&D may not be the right game for those not interested in conflict, but D&D can certainly be played -- and not in a wrongbadfun way -- by those not particularly interested in combat.


RC

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

I've been playing D&D on and off in one form or another since circa 1983, and I can remember arguments about "role-playing vs. roll-playing" and the idea of "munchkins" since the minute I started reading Usenet newsgroups about D&D in the early '90s.

I'm not sure of the exact definition of "role-playing", and I don't think anyone in this thread has offered a clear definition. Perhaps it means approaching the game from a naturalist viewpoint rather than from meta-game perspectives. I may be lucky with my current 4e group, as they rarely get into any meta-game analysis. They will push on through as many encounters as they can without taking a rest, because they acknowledge the time constraints that the story has raised. They will try to avoid encounters because the party is trying to be stealthy, even when they are perfectly capable of taking on the encounter. They will come up with creative narrative ideas (last game they created a distraction by lobbing a flask of alchemist's fire into the enemy tents).

Is that role-playing? We aren't really strict about "acting in character" or even in having particularly well-defined characters beyond that which evolves over the course of the game. But we all seem to be having a lot of fun, and we all do immerse ourselves in the story and the narrative world. I haven't seen (yet) that the 4e mechanics have particularly interfered with that immersion. We are all playing Essentials classes, though, and perhaps the post-Essentials design philosophy makes more of an effort to match the powers to the narrative than earlier 4e books did.

D&D 4e has definitely added more tactical complexity to combat than earlier editions, and the one issue that I agree with is that because 4e combats take so long that it shifts the emphasis towards combat and away from exploration and other forms of RP (even just in terms of the relative time spent). We all seem to enjoy the combat system, but it is certainly hard to recreate that old-school dungeon crawling feel which I also enjoy a lot. But for that, we have another game using an old-school system.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This is a separate, tangential answer to RC's and Imaro's recent posts:

Immersion is tricky as a concept to begin with. Deep immersion is controversial--ranging from people who consider it the holy grail of gaming all the way to people who deny its existence. It really makes the edition wars look tame, by comparison.

I'd really like to see an explanation of how deep immersion works by someone that could sufficiently distance themselves from other aspects of the session that they could tease out the immersion specifically. I haven't yet.

 

[Imaro]

I disagree Imaro. I think immersion is simply one form of role play.

Hey it's cool, we disagree as I feel it is a part of roleplaying as a whole.

Heck, back in the day, when the distinction between my character and me was a whole lot blurrier, we were still role playing. Despite acting in pretty much entirely meta-game fashion where every decision was based, not on what my fictional character would do when presented with the fictional situation, but what do I think is the best possible action for my character, we were still role playing.

Again cool, that is why in my previous post I said I wasn't even sure it was an objectively measurable thing... however there was still some immersion going on here... whether it was immersion in the world, the situations, your character or whatever so I don't think we are arguing at cross purposes so far.

Avatar play is about as far from immersion as you can get really. It's almost purely meta-game.

Notice you said "almost" purely meta-game... so again their is still a component, even if miniscule, of immersion.

I'd also point out that you are conflating immersion with simulation. You can certainly have immersion without simulation. Just because I get to take an author stance once in a while doesn't suddenly mean that I'm no longer immersed in the fiction. It might be true for you, but, now we're down to dueling anecdotes.

Ok, now I'm going to have to disagree... I am not conflating immersion with simulation. I am saying that simulationist games tend to more readily keep the 4th wall between those interacting and experiencing the game vs. those creating and running the game more distinct. Furthermore I think that this is what most casual players want out of a roleplaying game and find it easier to immerse themselves in it... especially since this is probably what they are most familiar with from other media such as movies and console roleplaying games.

How many is some? How many is many?

Hmm, this is irrelevant to my point. I never argued that some people can't be immersed in narrativist or gamist games... I only argued that for some or many they find it harder than in simulationist games... I then cited the thread to show that there were actually people who do find it harder.

And, additionally, where does it stop? Does adding an Action Point Mechanic destroy immersion? It's pretty far from a simulationist mechanic - the point of action points is to direct the game in a specific direction that is chosen by the player, not the simulation. How about the various information gathering spells which allow you to question the DM directly? Does that destroy immersion?

On and on.

In my previous post I already stated that the amount of immersion necessary for some vs. others was subjective... so I'm not sure what you are arguing for here.

I'll agree that immersion is a big part of role play for me. I'm not a big fan of avatar style play. It seems to work for other people.

And yet there is still a certain level of immersion even in avatar play... as you stated above... so again your point is lost on me since I conceded it was subjective in my earlier post.

But, conflating immersion with simulation is wrong IMO.

Yes...yes it is... I'd love to see a quote of where I did this.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Immersion is tricky as a concept to begin with. Deep immersion is controversial--ranging from people who consider it the holy grail of gaming all the way to people who deny its existence. It really makes the edition wars look tame, by comparison.

I'd really like to see an explanation of how deep immersion works by someone that could sufficiently distance themselves from other aspects of the session that they could tease out the immersion specifically. I haven't yet.

Let me know if you do. I'm not sure exactly what is meant by "deep immersion", either.

I've been playing D&D on and off in one form or another since circa 1983, and I can remember arguments about "role-playing vs. roll-playing" and the idea of "munchkins" since the minute I started reading Usenet newsgroups about D&D in the early '90s.

Yup.

Is that role-playing?

I would say Yes.

Looking at how factors may affect X tends to include trying to tease out exactly what X is in a more restrictive fashion than it is generally used. I.e., some idea of what the "core" of X is.

You do not, IMHO, need to be so immersed that you are running around the steam tunnels with Tom Hanks to be "role-playing", but you do have to experience some immersion.

Likewise, IMHO, factors that impede immersion also impede role-playing. But, some (possibly all) of those factors include subjective factors. Some find square fireballs pull them out of immersion. Others find square fireballs allow them to ignore fiddly rules bits that would pull them out of immersion.

So it goes.


RC

 

[Neonchameleon]

Slight correction accepted.



You could easily have included my point in your quote....it was right there!

D&D may not be the right game for those not interested in conflict, but D&D can certainly be played -- and not in a wrongbadfun way -- by those not particularly interested in combat.


RC

Oh, D&D can be played by those not particularly interested in combat. But the edition of D&D I'd prefer to play if avoiding combat is ... 4e. It has neither the "Find the right spell" nor the extreme range of PC ability of 3.X, nor the incoherence of the 2e NWPs, nor the lack of support of 1e (unless you bring in either UA or something heavy like the Wilderness Survival Guide). And skill challenges and expected challenge levels by level are an excellent tool for DMs.

Now that would be an interesting game. 1e combat plus 4e non-combat.

 

[Raven Crowking]

deleted

 

[Raven Crowking]

Now that would be an interesting game. 1e combat plus 4e non-combat.

It would be interesting.

Would you make 4e characters or 1e characters? When you've worked out the details, I'd be interested in a pbp. If you didn't want me as a participant, I would absolutely lurk to see how it went.

Personally, I wouldn't go back all the way to 1e combat, but I do think that something along the lines of "1e combat plus 4e non-combat" might describe a very successful 5th Edition.



RC