Monte Cook back at wizards

[Crazy Jerome]

Leaving out the later stuff in each edition, I'd say that the design/development of 3E and 4E are like this:

3E: Selectively ambitious in spots, but overall leaned slightly towards cautious in approach. This led to a lot of half-hearted compromises in places where it would have been better to have either left well enough alone, or alternately, better to push the intent of the design with conviction.

OTOH, the gaping holes in it, like much of the versions before, can be easily tinkered with at the edges. Ripping out the whole skill system, and replacing it with something consistent, is hard. (I know, I tried more than once.) But if you want to tweak stuff all over the place, it really won't matter much. Part of this is because an already unbalanced system can take a lot of abuse without losing anything appreciable, but on a more positive note, systems with such compromises tend to have multiple ways around any problem introduced. (Single class fighter not getting it done? Multiclass fighter/rogue might. Still not matching up with cleric, druid, or wizard at high levels? Nothing you did was going to anyway--so marginal improvement from mixing in rogue levels won't hurt.)

4E: Overall very ambitious, mixed with a bit of selective caution in some spots and outright timidity in others. The intent of the design is largely pushed with conviction. This means that it succeeds or fails on its own terms. When it fails, it fails hard.

OTOH, the transparency is there. When it works, you know it works, and you can probably easily see why. And if you can't, someone else can help you see it. It's so easy, that even some people that don't like it, don't play it, and don't fully understand it--can glimpse some of the essential interactions. Likewise, when it breaks, it is usually equally obvious. This means that there are wide areas that you can touch easily and with impunity, knowing that you practically can't break them. (The magic item usage by PCs is far more robust than even most early and thoughtful fans appreciated.) OTOH, if your preferences happen to require touching one of the areas that are not meant to be messed with, you are out of luck. (You'll have to really think about the whole design to make such changes well. You can't whip up a such a change off the cuff.) For this reason, 4E is selectively resistant to "drift". Since it is the first version of D&D to combine this hard resistance with transparency, it can really tick people off. (Earlier versions were also somewhat resistant to drift in places, but not nearly as obvious. This meant that it took a long time for people to realize, "Hey, that really don't work well when I change it." What you don't know doesn't often irritate you.)

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This post is in no way meant to bash 4E. It's a game which I play. Neither is it meant to defend 3E; as someone who played 3E for a long time, I am very familiar with the bugs in the design. However, as I sit and watch many of these threads, there seems to be (I could be imagining things) an underlying implied message which insists that the 4E methods and ideals are some sort of bastion of excellent design. There are many things I feel 4th Edition does right and does well, but there are also many things about 4th Edition which I do not believe work well; they prompted and pushed me to explore rpgs outside of the D&D brand; something I had never willingly done before 4th Edition.

Not speaking for anyone else, a lot of my criticism is directed from the perspective of the ideal, and with an appreciation for what other games have done to push design, since D&D first came on the scene. This in no way implies that I think the products being criticized were, relatively speaking, poor.

So, for example, I can write 5,000 words on why the 3E skill system is poor, from multiple angles--as a skill system for D&D in general, and for 3E in particular. But in the context of what the 3E designers had to work with, their concerns about embedding as much D&D tradtion as possible, and so forth--I'll readily admit that it was decent enough for what it was. It doesn't drag down 3E into some unplayable mess--far from it. It's biggest problem is that it is trying to do something impossible--simultaneously please several audiences with mutually exclusive preferences. But I'm not sure that problem could have been easily identified without hindsight.

The 3E skill system is very obviously a 1.0 version (after prototypes, betas, and alphas such as the NWP system). As an ideal, it is lacking. As a 1.0 version--I've seen much worse. (And 4E is very much a 2.0, with all that implies. Most products aren't really hitting their full stride until 3.0, and then incremental improvements happen from there.)

The 3E skill system is about as good a skill system as the 4E skill-challenge system is a structured narrative framework. Both are 1.0.

 

[mudlock]

but there are skills that scale with your own level... (look at rules compendium)

And what did you find when you looked in the rules compendium? Because nothing is coming to my mind. Maybe you're thinking of assisting, which now is based on your level (something I disagree w/, btw; what would have been so hard about saying "the DC minus 10"?))

I am also not against a scaling bonus... but I believe it is better if you can decide which skill you focus more...

If only there were some sort of thing, maybe a feat, which would allow one to FOCUS on a SKILL is they thought it was more important...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And what did you find when you looked in the rules compendium? Because nothing is coming to my mind. Maybe you're thinking of assisting, which now is based on your level (something I disagree w/, btw; what would have been so hard about saying "the DC minus 10"?))



If only there were some sort of thing, maybe a feat, which would allow one to FOCUS on a SKILL is they thought it was more important...

RC page 130-131 does state that if a DC doesn't specify a level then it is assumed to be at the level of the PC. Many specific DCs establish different rules. For instance Monster Knowledge check DCs are of the level of the monster. Many others give fixed DCs for specific things.

Lets look at these 'character level' checks though. Take History, where one check you could make is "Inspire a militia (moderate DC)". Now, what sort of militia are you inspiring at level 1 and what sort of threat are you inspiring them to face up to? At level 20? The DC might well be moderate for your character in both situations. The game simply never conceives of the idea that you would actually care what it takes to inspire the level 1 militia when you're level 20. Or if you DID have to inspire such a militia it is going to be darned hard since you're asking them to stand up to an epic level threat. Since everything ties conflict to something appropriate to your level the rules don't REALLY need to talk about drastically different level challenges. Whenever it does matter, because something can be directly measured like a long jump, the DCs are absolute and stated that way. It would be erroneous to conclude things like "climbing a wall is always a moderate DC check of your level". It is correct to conclude that "all the walls that the DM is going to care about if I climb them or not are pretty much my level." Given that the DM can either set specific DCs for unusual situations, or add modifiers for unusual difficulties when the check is called for, etc, the difference actually is close to immaterial in play. It just would have been nice if they had actually said that in words instead of implying it in a way that you have to study the skill system to infer.

 

[Argyle King]

No, but what strikes me is that the flaws in 3e were deep issues of fundamental organization and the totality of the game that was delivered, where the issues with 4e are all of the 'dimensional shackles' variety. I can change dimensional shackles or get rid of them. I suppose I could also rip out the 3e skill system and replace it, but obviously these are tasks of greatly different magnitude. My 4e game sans dimensional shackles (or even with some feats given out for free etc) is still fundamentally 4e as designed with at best a couple of tweaks to the size of some bonus. 3e with a different skill system is a whole new game. Maybe one that is pretty similar to 3e, but you'd have to explain the differences in detail to a player new to your table. I don't even have to mention that dimensional shackles don't exist, and I can explain 'get Weapon Expertise for free at level 1' in 2 sentences and not expect to even have to mention it again.

I'd hardly say all of the 4E issues are of that variety; I'd say a large portion, but not all. I have issues with the 4E skill system as well. In many instances, I find it to be fine. However, when there are times that it doesn't seem to work (or fit) for something I want to do, it really comes off as lacking. In that regard, I suppose my opinion about 4E is that it's very binary and/or hit & miss. When things work, they work great; when something breaks down, it breaks down rather severely.

I'll also add that -for a while- it seemed as though the rules were not consistent. I'm not a rules-Nazi, and I'm fine with breaking from the mold, but -as a new 4E DM- I had a lot of confusion about why the monster creation guidelines in the back of the DMG seemed to rarely match up with the numbers presented with the monsters in MM1. I understand the concept that monster creation is as much art as it is science; I understand that one monster may need to do less damage due to having a status effect attached to an attack, but -even considering those things- there were times when the numbers just simply did not add up. There were other times when I started to feel as though the player community and fanbase of the game were more proficient in using the rules and generating satisfying content than the people who were paid to write the books. Some of this has been fixed in newer books, but there are still a few dangling issues. For me personally, it's not that big of a deal to fix them on my own for my table; however, I remember part of the stated appeal of 4E being to be easier for new groups - some of the work needing to be done to achieve a better experience with the system is not easy work for someone new to rpgs.

I will also admit that many of the issues I personally have with the system are due to how my ideals about gaming differ from the ideals 4E is built upon. As such, some of the problems I have are non-issues for other people. I play the game, and I enjoy the game, but there are many aspects of the game I wish were more in line with what I wanted out of an rpg experience. Somewhere during the 4E preview they were at a point which I feel was good for me, and then something happened to mutate that into a different experience. When I sit and play 4E, I often see signs that a certain aspect of the game started to be designed in one way, and then for seemingly no reason got shifted into working a different way. As a player, and as someone who wants to like D&D, I ask myself what happened, and where the concepts I liked went.

 

[mudlock]

Somewhere during the 4E preview they were at a point which I feel was good for me, and then something happened to mutate that into a different experience.

Okay, this is like the fourth time you've alluded to this in this thread without giving any examples, so as someone who never looked at the previews, fine; I'll bite:

What things, specifically, did they change?

 

[Argyle King]

Okay, this is like the fourth time you've alluded to this in this thread without giving any examples, so as someone who never looked at the previews, fine; I'll bite:

What things, specifically, did they change?

For one, the previews wholeheartedly embraced the 'Points of Light' idea. The tone, mood, and scope (IMO) presented was very different from that found in the end 4E product as well as what is supported by the 4E mechanics. The world was a primal and dangerous place; in this regard, I would say Dark Sun is probably the closest 4E product to the world as presented in the preview materials. What I expected -based on the previews- was something much closer to Low Fantasy or perhaps a more grounded Sword & Sorcery experience with a touch of the dark duality found in classic fairy tales helping to shape the tone and feel of the world.

In contrast, the end result of 4E was much more high fantasy and presented the PCs (again, IMO) in a much more exaggerated fashion. To the point where it's somewhat ridiculous for the PCs to view the world around them in any manner that I would associate with the terminology of 'Points of Light.' Yes, I get the idea that PCs should be the main characters; that is an idea I support. However, the previews didn't paint a portrait in which I saw the PCs kicking in the door, totally annihilating threats, and just leaving a trail of destruction in their wake without a second thought.

I also had thought there would be more support for non-directly combat related tasks. With the previews showcasing an image of a world which I took as being somewhat dark and broken, I had thought there would be more support for interacting with that world. I thought with all of the unclaimed and unexplored territory there would be room for PCs to do things like settle a region and cut out a realm for themselves. What I imagined from the previews was something that had the grittiness and primal nature of Dark Sun, the post-war/battered world feel and pulp style of 3rd Edition Eberron, and the sense of wonder & jolt to my imagination I had when I first picked up a D&D book only to have it tell me "we don't know what is in this part of the map; make of it what you will."

I will say that the first round of books did a very nice job of that third point. The Nentire Vale map was a great start, and a lot of the fluff alluded to things which made me hopeful for those other two points I listed to be met. There were things I didn't like right out of the gate, but I thought to myself "ok, so maybe they just don't have that part of the game worked out yet; I'll stick with it and see." However, as more material was released, I instead found the game moving further and further away from the things I liked in the preview material. The mechanics didn't do a good job of portraying the stated fluff; as more fluff was released, it moved further away from what I was lead to imagine from the preview materials.

Now, a lot of that is a discussion on feel. Feel is subjective; however, I'm by far not the only person I know who holds the opinion that there seems to have been a shift in focus between Worlds & Monsters and the end product of 4E. Likewise, there are also sidebars in the preview books which talk about ideals behind certain ways of doing things which seem to have never quite made it into the final draft of the game. There were also discussions in other places with the designers -before 4E was released- which talked about concepts they felt were important to the game such as making the character matter more than equipment and having choices such as race matter more than simply being some sort of boost/power at level 1. Aside from some race specific feats (which was exactly how 3rd Edition did it for the most part) that didn't happen until much later material with things such as backgrounds and some of the alternate features in Neverwinter.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

For one, the previews wholeheartedly embraced the 'Points of Light' idea. The tone, mood, and scope (IMO) presented was very different from that found in the end 4E product as well as what is supported by the 4E mechanics. The world was a primal and dangerous place; in this regard, I would say Dark Sun is probably the closest 4E product to the world as presented in the preview materials. What I expected -based on the previews- was something much closer to Low Fantasy or perhaps a more grounded Sword & Sorcery experience with a touch of the dark duality found in classic fairy tales helping to shape the tone and feel of the world.

In contrast, the end result of 4E was much more high fantasy and presented the PCs (again, IMO) in a much more exaggerated fashion. To the point where it's somewhat ridiculous for the PCs to view the world around them in any manner that I would associate with the terminology of 'Points of Light.' Yes, I get the idea that PCs should be the main characters; that is an idea I support. However, the previews didn't paint a portrait in which I saw the PCs kicking in the door, totally annihilating threats, and just leaving a trail of destruction in their wake without a second thought.

To be fair, the onus to produce the feel you describe is almost entirely on the DM. One of the DMs in my group ran a default PoL-type game when 4e first came out and it evoked exactly the feel implied by the preview materials. I can't even place the blame on official modules, because he used some when running his game. I think that the feel you're looking for is just difficult to do well; some DMs will be good at it, and others won't.

I also had thought there would be more support for non-directly combat related tasks. With the previews showcasing an image of a world which I took as being somewhat dark and broken, I had thought there would be more support for interacting with that world. I thought with all of the unclaimed and unexplored territory there would be room for PCs to do things like settle a region and cut out a realm for themselves.

Again, this is DM-territory. I don't think they can spell out how this is supposed to be done; it defeats the purpose.

Now, a lot of that is a discussion on feel. Feel is subjective;

You got that part absolutely right. And subjective impressions are based on experience. Maybe with a different DM, it would have "clicked" for you.

...however, I'm by far not the only person I know who holds the opinion that there seems to have been a shift in focus between Worlds & Monsters and the end product of 4E. Likewise, there are also sidebars in the preview books which talk about ideals behind certain ways of doing things which seem to have never quite made it into the final draft of the game. There were also discussions in other places with the designers -before 4E was released- which talked about concepts they felt were important to the game such as making the character matter more than equipment and having choices such as race matter more than simply being some sort of boost/power at level 1. Aside from some race specific feats (which was exactly how 3rd Edition did it for the most part) that didn't happen until much later material with things such as backgrounds and some of the alternate features in Neverwinter.

There are some elements of the design that are only now coming into their own, but I think this is to be expected, to a point. They can't release everything at once, in all fairness.

Like the point about characters mattering more than items; perhaps they should have put inherent bonuses in DMG1 instead of 2, but realize that as well as it works, there is no way they could have made it the "standard" because there are far too many folks used to, or actively enjoying the christmas tree effect from 3.x. I mean, plenty of those folks were not going to play 4e anyway, but you can at least recognize the role that edition war politics played in some of their decisions about which direction to take things.

 

[Argyle King]

To be fair, the onus to produce the feel you describe is almost entirely on the DM. One of the DMs in my group ran a default PoL-type game when 4e first came out and it evoked exactly the feel implied by the preview materials. I can't even place the blame on official modules, because he used some when running his game. I think that the feel you're looking for is just difficult to do well; some DMs will be good at it, and others won't.

Again, this is DM-territory. I don't think they can spell out how this is supposed to be done; it defeats the purpose.

.

To an extent I agree, but I also disagree somewhat. I believe that there is a relationship between crunch and fluff. I can try to run the same module with the same group of players; using Savage Worlds in one case, D&D 4E in another, and GURPS in yet a third; the same module will come across differently. There will be recognizable similarities, and there will probably be some parts of the module where you barely notice, but the different things that the respective games highlight and/or don't highlight will spin the feel in some way.

Likewise, there's a big difference in how a castle comes across as a magic item which gives a +2 on diplomacy checks compared to how a castle comes across as a structure which has statistics derived from a less abstract system. I'm claiming neither that one is better or worse; only that they are different and have the ability to produce different experiences. I believe certain ways of handling an aspect of gameplay present themselves better to certain styles than others do.

I haven't only played with one DM. If that were the case, I would be completely open to accepting that what happens at one table may not happen at another; that's a concept I understand and have indeed experienced (I've sat at tables where the 3rd Edition Bard was the most useful member of a party.)

I'm not bashing 4th Edition. It's a game I still play; I've pretty consistently been playing it at least once per week. At some points since it's been released, I was playing three times per week. Currently I play in a Saturday game, and I am running a game on Wednesdays. There are many things about the game I enjoy, but I've had to change how I view D&D to be able to more fully enjoy it. As well, when running a game, I've found that I get the best results by ignoring a lot of the official DM advice given.

It's a fun game, it has many merits, but there are also a lot of things about it which I feel could be done much better.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

And what did you find when you looked in the rules compendium? Because nothing is coming to my mind. Maybe you're thinking of assisting, which now is based on your level (something I disagree w/, btw; what would have been so hard about saying "the DC minus 10"?))

As Abdul said, climbing, e.g.
Although he is right of course, as indeed most times you would not bother with "lower level walls".
But I even could imagine a high level wizard trying to climb onto a mundane wall... it is just counter intuitive to assist or climb against a DC of your own level.
What would have been so hard to say: Set a level for the obstacle and use the DC of that level for that challenge...

If only there were some sort of thing, maybe a feat, which would allow one to FOCUS on a SKILL is they thought it was more important...

senseless when feats compete with more flavourful feats or mechanical better feats... this needs to be seperated