Playing 2e, 3e, and 4e at the same time: Observations

[Celebrim]

My observations:

1) "Tactical Positions": Tactics are a function of terrain, weapons and circumstance. Anyone that expects complicated tactics on terrainless map with generic melee weapons is going to be disappointed. But, in any edition of the game, if terrain is present then tactics will naturally be present. Likewise if weapon disparity is present, then tactics will be present and so forth.

Personally I feel that the advantage of 4e's only edge here is in the straight foward way that it educates the players about tactics by providing clear and unambigious descriptions of the tactical advantage you gain in a particular circumstance. In most cases, how you should handle the situation in other systems is much less clear. But I've seen no end of 3e battles lost from winnable positions by players who adopted poor or uncreative tactics, so I'm pretty much completely unconvincable that 3e doesn't heavily emphasis tactics and cooperation. There is just little or nothing that says, "If you arrange this situation you'll get this obvious numeric award", except for flanking.

And all of this is as true of 1e/2e as well.

As for combat length, I played in an open dungeon crawl format in 3e that typically saw fights last not much longer 1e/2e precisely because the fights tended to be of the 20x30 room containg a few monsters sort, and so there was little in the way of tactics but closing and opening up in a brutal melee that generally only lasted 2-3 rounds. We'd often cram 5-6 fights into two hours, and that includes exploration, narration, and so forth.

However, in my current game while I sometimes see this in simple fights where I don't even get out the map, in 'boss fight' situations I'm trying to encourage more complex fights and often fights go 12-13 rounds (or more). In some cases, I've had 30 different combatants on the map. In those cases, fights can take an hour or two to resolve rather than 5-10 minutes.

2) "Promotion of Roleplaying": I agree with your initial observation, that this is a function of the group and of the DM in particular.

Diplomacy only can be used to bludgeon through the act of roleplaying if the DM allows it. At my table, in order to make a diplomacy check you must earn it through roleplay. You know more can make a diplomacy check without stating what you say, than you can make a climb check without first stating that you walk over to the wall and proceed to climb it. You can no more make a diplomacy check without stating precisely what you say, than you can make a search check without stating precisely what it is you are searching. There must be an in game action which the out of game mechanic is arbitrating the success of.

So, "Well met.", is fine. "I [want to] greet the merchant.", is not. Anyone that offers up the later proposition immediately gets the question, "Ok, how do you greet the merchant", in the same way that some who says, "I [want to] search", immediately gets the question, "What do you want to search?" or a person who says, "I [want to] search the room.", immediately gets the question, "Ok, where do you start?"

Once you've roleplayed sufficiently that the content of your message is clear to me, you make a dice roll that determines the effectiveness of the delivery of that content. This encourages RP in some ways more than 1e/2e because, unlike those earlier editions, the DM is freed from having to judge the player on the basis of the style and persuasiveness of the player's delivery. As such, players who know that they personally are not very persuasive and who are perhaps introverted IRL are encouraged to speak up because they know that no matter how stuttering, stumbling, and inept they speak, that the game doesn't punish them on that basis.

Now if the DM/players prefer a game without roleplay, then the diplomacy skill obviously allows for that as well. And if the DM does allow diplomacy checks to be made without accompaning RP, that's his decision of course, but then he can hardly blame the system for this result. This is a decision about how to play the game that operates at a level above the rules. But unlike 4e, 3e has nothing in the way of a 'skill challenge' that priviledges mechanics over RP.

 

[ferratus]

Combat length seems to be the controversial, so I'll return to it.

Even if your name is Flash Quicksilver, it is going to take you one minute assume your turn, roll your dice and calculate the effect. It is going to take another 30 seconds to a minute to move your miniature. If you have 5 players plus a DM it is going to take 5-10 minutes per round. Three rounds is a half hour, nine rounds is an hour and a half. So the difference as to whether it takes 3 hits to knock an enemy down or 6 hits is a big deal.

Setting up miniatures will generally take 5 minutes to lay the tiles or draw the map and to lay down the relevant minis if the DM is prepared. It will also take a few minutes to clean up. Even if you are an efficient DM, that is still going to be a half hour loss each night from simply handling and dealing with minis.

2e generally has a high "wiff" factor at low levels which is both tedious and slows combat down to a crawl. Since the monsters have a low amount of hit points however, and the combat actions for non-spellcasters generally involve saying "I hit" or "I miss", combat can be speedy. Spellcasters also hadn't develop 3e's bad habits such as the time sinks of buffing and debuffing spells.

Both 2e and 3e severely undervalue spells that remove actions or nerf combat effectiveness. Whenever one player of 4 is taken out of the game with a sleep, hold monster, or similar spell then combat is going to be 25% longer. However, 4e properly values the threat level of such effects, while 2e has less spellcasting monsters in general.

One of the biggest time sink for 3e though has to be movement and attacks of opportunity. We spend more time arguing about that in our 3e game than anything else. Are the players just being difficult? Perhaps. But I remember arguing about that when I played 3e with my other group as well.
2e doesn't have an opportunity attack mechanic, so generally you can move around much more freely. 4e has opportunity attacks, but allows those who need to ignore it (mages and rogues) the tools to do so by granting teleportation and shifting powers.

So if you weigh all the things that slow down combat between the editions, I think you'll find that 3e and 4e come out about even, while 2e is faster (most of the time). If you load up on the things that slow down 2e combat however (spells and high AC) it becomes just as slow as all the rest.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I recenlty ran a 2E game after years of 3E and I noticed both the combat was slower and people roleplayed more. Still love 3E, but I agree with the OP that diplomacy tends to cut through the roleplaying (this isn't always the case, my own game has social skills and we role play plenty...but in practice we definitely roleplayed more using the 2e rules than the 3e rules).

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Even if your name is Flash Quicksilver, it is going to take you one minute assume your turn, roll your dice and calculate the effect. It is going to take another 30 seconds to a minute to move your miniature. If you have 5 players plus a DM it is going to take 5-10 minutes per round. Three rounds is a half hour, nine rounds is an hour and a half. So the difference as to whether it takes 3 hits to knock an enemy down or 6 hits is a big deal.

First i'd like to note that I agree with you that 4e combats take longer than they need to and require a lot of housekeeping for all the players every turn...however...

I am currently playing an arrow shooting bard. When combat comes around to a combatant or two BEFORE my turn I have already calculated what I am going to do with my three actions barring major changes due to something that happens in the turn or two before mine.

I preroll the to-hit and damage die for the power I am using and sit back and wait for the GM to call out my character. Then it goes something like this....

GM: Your turn Dan.

Me: OK. I move over here (move my mini to where I am going) and shot at this guy (point at my target) and got a 23 to hit AC. If I hit I did 16 damage and he falls over if he misses his next attack. Also, Dave, I use my Majestic Word on your fighter so you can spend a surge and get an extra 8 points on top of it. I'm done.

GM: (finishes scribbling notes on the bad guy card). OK, Dave, you're up!

That's not 2-3 minutes per turn. Now granted occasionally things change drastically after I have pre-planned my turn and it takes longer, but usually that's not the case. If everyone but the GM (because he should always be paying attention, not doing planning in the background) took player turns like that the game would be pretty quick.

DS

 

[amerigoV]

I played in a 2 hour 2e game at Origins this year. It was the top portion of Ye Olde Moathouse. While what the OP says is true about 2e (and I did have fun), it did remind me why I will not play it anymore - just a maddening jumble of "roll high for this, roll low for that". I ran the thief and the wizard, and in that two hours I rolled the following to see if I could do anything:

• Roll high on a d20 to hit
• Roll low on a d20 to see if I could swim across the moat
• Roll high on a d6 to surprise someone
• Roll low on a d6 to see if I found a secret door
• Roll low on d% to listen /detect traps/climb
• Roll low on a d10 for initiative
• No roll - cast a spell

I felt like I was playing Calvinball. Fun, but the rules were a mess.

3e is a beast on the DM side of things. It was a necessary step to clean up the mechanics, but building monsters the same way you build PCs turned out to be a mistake that 4e fixed nicely. I'll play in a 3e game because I can build about anything I want. I will not DM it anymore (I am a Savage Worlds guy). My impression is that 3e combats ramp up in play time. First level or two might be slower due to the "whiff" factor, but then it steadily increases due to more and more options. I ran an 18th level one-shot with a large group and it was a killer time-wise.

I have had fun in the few 4e games that I have played. It certainly scratches the "kick in the door and take their stuff" itch. I have only DM'd it once, and that was with the trail rules. I like what they did with the DM side of the screen. I'll gladly play the game. My combat impression is fights start at 6th level in feel (to previous editions). Fun, but one can miss out on the "wet behind the ears growing to be competent" feeling. Fun for those of us that like tactics, but I feel I need the right group of people to get the most out of the game.

I do agree that skills sometimes are a crutch for both players and DMs. Yes, players may want to handwave, but DMs need to run the skills right. You use them at the point that there are odd of things going different directions, not was a replacement for good play. Ie, they replace the DM "rolling something" in 1e to determine of what you said/did succeeds if there is a chance of failure.

 

[ferratus]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] - The DM sets the DC of whether the diplomacy check works or not anyway, so if the DM doesn't like the "pre" Diplomacy spiel because the player is not persuasive or not charismatic then he'll set the DC so that it is likely to fail anyway.

On the obverse, when a player takes the time to be interested in learning the target NPC's needs or wants, makes a reasonable deal, and does roleplay well why punish him with an arbitary failure roll of the dice?

As for "the DM allowing it", every player I've ever gamed with has treated it as a bludgeon, because players will always seek the quickest and easiest way to overcome an obstacle. The order is 1) Kill it. 2) If you can't kill it, then do a diplomacy check to get your way. 3) If you don't have diplomacy then use intimidate to get your way. 4) If you can't intimidate without repercussions then use a spell slot for charm person. 5) Actually care about the story and interacting with PC's. 6) Spend gold or favours.

The moment that completely soured me on Diplomacy was a game where the PC's wanted to get past the city guards at the gate. My wife was playing a bard, and being a bard rolled diplomacy and told me that she rolled 25 on her Diplomacy check, and that the guard likes her enough to simply let her past without checking her papers and possessions. I asked her how that could be, when she hasn't given me any reason why he would do that. This led to a huge row with everyone at the table, with the sentiment being that if she had to give a bribe, then why bother with diplomacy? The fact that you have to actually make a deal with NPC's to get your way became a frequent source of conflict. When we switched to 2e and the Diplomacy skill vanished, the source of conflict did too. Now people actually engage the NPC's and find out what they need or want. If they make a reasonable effort to communicate with the NPC, generally they get what they want... and they didn't even realize the difference in how their playstyle had changed.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Vancian magic also has this problem, as running out of spells forces an end to exploration and encounters and destroys the narrative flow of the adventure.

Never seen this in 34 years of gaming.

In many ways this is even worse than 4e, as the game can continue after a short rest, while in 2e or 3e you have to go back to base, rest and return. So in essence you are trading a few major disruptions to the narrative flow for a minor disruption between every encounter.

I find this negatively impacts the narrative flow for me. The previous editions of the game resonate with the fiction I read. Heroes run out of resources, they get tired...

4Ed, OTOH, reminds me of videogames I play (arcade games, mainly) in which recharging all but your most powerful resources can be done as easily as turning a corner...or even engaging the next opponent.

There is also a tendency in 3e and 2e to reserve resources (since they don't recharge after the encounter) that isn't found in 4e, so players are more likely to look for a solution that saves their spells and hp.

Again, this sounds good to me. It's what smart, realistically written heroes do.

In 4e, players tend to simply cut through any minor obstacle.

Again, this reminds me more of cartoons and videogames than the fantasy novels and mythology I enjoy.

Don't get me wrong- I like cartoons and videogames- but the FRPG hobby hooked me because I felt like I was actually a part of those stories. 4Ed's mechanics actually erect a barrier for me precisely because you are almost never in danger of running out of anything.

 

[ferratus]

[MENTION=5875]dan[/MENTION]ny Alcatraz

The idea that you've never seen a DM let people retreat and rest up when they run out spells and hp, even if it doesn't make narrative sense to retreat and rest up, is something I find very hard to swallow.

On the off chance that you are right, then I will simply counter that I have seen it in every game I've ever played, with every DM I've ever had, in my 19 years of gaming. I also have the strong suspicion that my experience is the more common one. Dice after all can be unpredictable in how much damage they deal out, and your cleric can be polymorphed into a frog.

As for the recharging between encounters being videogamish, that is simply false. Collecting health packs and resting were the default for videogames up until a few years ago. Video games and 4e adopted the regenerating and powers mechanic out of a similar problem, namely that getting stuck in an area and not being able to go forward or backwards because you are low on resources is a pain in the ass. I am playing 2e with healing surges for that reason, not because I want it to be more videogamey. I do it because healing surges are the best way I've seen so far to allow me to keep the narrative flow of the dungeon intact without an accidental TPK that will make my players hate me.

 

[Gentlegamer]

What the heck is the 'narrative flow' of a dungeon?

 

[JamesonCourage]

As for "the DM allowing it", every player I've ever gamed with has treated it as a bludgeon, because players will always seek the quickest and easiest way to overcome an obstacle. The order is 1) Kill it. 2) If you can't kill it, then do a diplomacy check to get your way. 3) If you don't have diplomacy then use intimidate to get your way. 4) If you can't intimidate without repercussions then use a spell slot for charm person. 5) Actually care about the story and interacting with PC's. 6) Spend gold or favours.

Between statements like this one, and others indicating that you might have argumentative players (or players that would hate you if there was a TPK), I'd say we've had a massively different gaming experience.

That is, my players (or myself when I play) do not use your listed Order of Operations for Overcoming Obstacles. This just isn't a universal problem. It's one that does affect some tables, yes, but not every table.

Just like argumentative players in combat. Not every table is bogged down in squabbles over how something like attacks of opportunities work. Nor is every table filled with players who would hate a GM after a party wipe. Party wipes happen from time to time (well, once to my group so far), but you see it for the story value it has, play off of it, and make new characters.

I'm not saying your experiences are wrong, nor are your opinions. But they are by no means universal, and extrapolating them would be a bad idea (which I don't think you're inherently doing).

As far as things like healing surges, narrative flow of the game, etc. are concerned, it's all about preference. Your style would kill immersion for me, and thus isn't a good solution for me. My style would kill immersion for you (since you seem to get annoyed at having to stop and rest, and annoyance makes you think in meta terms), and thus isn't a good solution for you.

Healing surges remind Danny of arcade games, and that's something you disagreeing with will not change, because that's not how the mind works. If I listen to a song and it reminds me of a friend, but it doesn't remind you of a friend, you really shouldn't disagree with me when I say it does remind me of a friend. It may not for you, and that's fine, but if my mind connects one thing to another and yours doesn't, it does not invalidate my connection at all.

This all seems to be personal opinions, and that makes me wonder if it would be better served as a blog, rather than a post. Though, it does make for a good discussion. I would just suggest not disagreeing with people's feelings, connections, or the like, as they are not based in logic. And, I'd suggest keeping in mind that everything in here is exceptionally subjective, and that trying to objectively pin down whether or not X feels like Y just isn't going to work.

At any rate, I'm not trying to come off as preachy or anything. I just think that this thread has potential to be really interesting, and I'd like to see that happen rather than escalate into edition wars or "your feelings are wrong because of my interpretation."

As always, play what you like