I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[BryonD]

That said, my general view, frequently expressed on these forums, is that 4e isn't aimed at those who want to play the game solely in actor stance. It encourages players to take some self-conscious responsibility for shaping the fiction.

Do you consider it at all a concern that the current edition of the D&D brand doesn't support that style of play?

Do you ever read any fiction and expect the characters to be responsible for "shaping the fiction" in the way you expect 4E players to? I mean, my players "shape" the fiction all the time by choosing to attack the giant or parlay, or something as simple as going left or right. But, correct me if I'm wrong, that really has nothing to do with what you mean by that. You mean in the sense that players all share some measure of authorship control which completely transcends being in the shoes of a single character within the plot.

 

[Hussar]

That is the main reason I don't like Healing Surges.

You might as well just get rid of any sort of real-world challenge and just make the game even easier and simpler by saying, "Everyone gets a Healing Burst after every single encounter. It heals you to max and now you can go to the next encounter without any worries. Have fun!"

At least you admit to what they are really for. The thing is, nobody else seems to want to admit that all Healing Surges are is a way to implement "cheat codes" so the game is easier and you have less to deal with. Then everyone wants to rationalize it with incompatible explanations about what hitpoints, bloodied, and dying represent in order to feel ok for using cheat codes.

In 3e, it was called healing wands. Same effect.

 

[Hussar]

But you do recognize, right, that it opens up many other narrative paths that you otherwise would not be able to traverse? Granted, they may not be narrative paths that you personally are interested in, but them's the trade-offs that designers make; they attempt to make the game that they believe the most players will enjoy the most, and recognize that they can't literally make everyone happy.

Wow, this sounds familiar somehow... Oh yeah, I said pretty much exactly the same thing several pages back.

 

[Hussar]

I don't see this getting resolved in our conversation, because if those rules I posted are correct, then it's very clear to me that you're house ruling in favor of narrative coherence. While I understand the motive, I dislike that it needs to be house ruled to achieve.

That is, if I want to "check" an ally, it doesn't mean I want to start to stabilize him. You say that the "stabilize the dying" action covers the narrative portion of checking a creature, where the mechanics disagree (as far as I can tell). This specific action seems intent on stopping the character from making death saving throws. I was asking about merely inspecting the wound, and nothing more.

To that end, I still hold that you've house ruled it as one and the same, "you didn't patch them up, you just discovered that they aren't bleeding out." I have two issues with this.
(1) It's a house rule "fix" to what I think shouldn't need to be fixed in the game.
(2) It's restrictive. It forces the player out of "actor stance" and into a place where he needs to narrate the fiction he wishes. To a group that wants to stay immersed, this is jarring enough to pull you out of a deep immersion state. If I checked on another PC to see if he was okay, and I heard, "do you want him to be stabilized?" I'd say, "uh, I was just curious if he was." I was taking an information-gathering action, and nothing more. I wasn't trying to shape the story other than by having my character investigate, and that's been taken away. By having a separate action that allows you to investigate in-game, you leave both avenues open. That is, you can investigate in-game (and stay in-character), or you can attempt to stabilize someone (and flavor it as in-game or from a more story perspective ["after inspecting him, you find out he's going to be fine."]).

To that end, can't you basically attempt to "stunt" or the like with skills with page 42? Shouldn't this cover areas that skills don't explicitly cover (like checking to see the physical state of a downed character)? If so, couldn't that be used to check the character in-game? And, if the above is true, wouldn't that produce the Schrodinger's Wound problem?

In other words, I think it leads back to being a problem to people that prefer to remain immersed in the game. If you don't mind getting pulled out of immersion (that's not to say the story or the game), it's probably fine (or even great). To others, I still hold that it's a problem.


I don't like that there's no wiggle room for NPCs (they're either unconscious or dead, not ever bleeding out), but that's just preference on my part (narrative paths and all that). So, fair enough on the mechanics (I assumed it applied to more since it referred to "characters", but that was my mistake).

As always, play what you like

The problem here is, you're presuming that the mechanics dictate the description. They don't. That's how 3e works. In 3e, the creature has dropped you into negative HP's, you ARE GOING TO DIE! The mechanics tell you exactly what's happening, as it happens.

4e doesn't do that. 4e allows a small amount of player authorial control over the situation. Making a Heal check, for example, could be stabilizing someone, or it could just be to determine how wounded the person is. However, that's going to be very situational. After all, how many people could actually tell you that someone has a ruptured spleen by looking at them while the injured person is wearing full plate armor?

Like I've said multiple times, people are willing to believe six impossible things, but apparently that seventh is just a step too far.

Me, I want a game where the players influence the story, rather than the game dictating the story. Apparently, some are very content with having the mechanics dictate the story.

 

[Hussar]

Do you consider it at all a concern that the current edition of the D&D brand doesn't support that style of play?

Do you ever read any fiction and expect the characters to be responsible for "shaping the fiction" in the way you expect 4E players to? I mean, my players "shape" the fiction all the time by choosing to attack the giant or parlay, or something as simple as going left or right. But, correct me if I'm wrong, that really has nothing to do with what you mean by that. You mean in the sense that players all share some measure of authorship control which completely transcends being in the shoes of a single character within the plot.

To be frankly honest? No. Not in the slightest.

For one, you're talking about a level of immersion that, IMO, is impossible in D&D. I mean, after the first round of combat, most groups sound like a rather complicated version of Bingo. Character's in stories don't crack wise at the table. They don't make Monte Python (or pick your geek cultural reference of choice) jokes. On and on and on.

Players in D&D are players first. The game is FAR too mechanical to ever be anything else. The idea that D&D is as immersive as you're claiming, to me, is so far beyond anything I've seen or heard anywhere that it's not even close to reality.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have never had an issue with immersion in earlier editions.

 

[Hussar]

I have never had an issue with immersion in earlier editions.

Immersion to the point where all of your actions are 100% based in the narrative of the game and absolutely no meta-gaming is going on at all?

I don't have a problem with immersion either. In any edition. But, to the degree that BryonD is talking about? That I've never seen.

And, I'll give you a perfect example of why I don't think this is a consideration. Take JamesonCourage for a moment. Earlier, he talked about how serious wounds had an impact on his campaign some 8-10 times. Sounds like a lot right?

But, IIRC, his last campaign was 5 years and some 2-3000 hours of gameplay long. That means that serious wounds came into play once ever 200 hours of game play. I don't know about you, but, I run entire campaigns in less play time than that.

This is why I characterize it as, not so much a large narrative space, but a narrative puddle. If this is something that comes up once a campaign, at best, who cares? Do we really want to have mechanics for that?

So, back to BryonD's question about supporting a playstyle, in light of JamesonCourage's post, this is why I couldn't really care less that this has been excised from 4e. It's such a tiny corner case that why should I care?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't see what the serious wound issue has to do with the claim that D&D isn't an immersive game.

I also think you are presenting and impossible standard for immersion there. Requiring thag rules considerations and metagame thinking never factor in for immersion to occur would pretty much eliminate any game with mechanics as an option.

When it comes to immersion, what people find disruptive is going to be a personal thing. In my view 1e and 2e enabled the most immersion (for me). 3e presented a few things i found disruptive but could overlook. 4e added more stuff to the point I found immersion difficult. But my business partner pretty much had the opposite experience. 4e enabled greater immersion for him. A lot of this just boils down to what matters to you as a player during character creation and play. In my opinion, no edition has a monopoly on immersion.

 

[pemerton]

Do you consider it at all a concern that the current edition of the D&D brand doesn't support that style of play?

No. It obviously is a concern for others, but for me, it's the reason I'm playing D&D at all. If I wanted to GM an actor-stance driven game, I'd be GMing HARP (or perhaps, despite my resolution never to GM it again, Rolemaster).

Do you ever read any fiction and expect the characters to be responsible for "shaping the fiction" in the way you expect 4E players to?

Generally not, although there are exceptions of the "Purple Rose of Cairo"/"Singing Detective" variety.

But playing an RPG isn't reading fiction. Nor is GMing it writing fiction. It has a participant/audience dimension. I expect my players to build the gameworld that surrounds their PCs (dwarvish customs, drow cults, fallen human cities, religious observances, etc) and am happy for them to take responsibility (where appropriate) for more immediate aspects of the fiction as well.

I mean, my players "shape" the fiction all the time by choosing to attack the giant or parlay, or something as simple as going left or right. But, correct me if I'm wrong, that really has nothing to do with what you mean by that. You mean in the sense that players all share some measure of authorship control which completely transcends being in the shoes of a single character within the plot.

Yes, but I think it is important not to over-emphasise the degree of transcendence. The players are still expected to advocate for their PCs - they are not expected to suspend that advocacy in order to consider the broader interests of the story. It's just that, in so advocating, they have entry points into the fiction other than those that come from declaring actions on the part of their PCs. It can be as simple as metagaming a convenient rendezvous, or spontaneously inventing a secret hand signal to try and identify fellow cult members among NPCs (the player was hoping for the captain, I gave him a lieutenant). It can be as complex as positing a reason why two gods would conspire to return a PC back to life rather than let him pass into death (which has turned out to be one of the major foci of the campaign - one PC's quest to restore the empire of Nerath by reconstructing the Sceptre of Erathis, aka the Rod of Seven Parts). Sometimes it is inherent in the mechanics - using Come and Get It (unerrated at my table) or choosing to be a Questing Knight (and therefore dictating that the Raven Queen - a divine NPC - has bestowed a quest upon the PC).

As I hope comes through in my posts - I certainly don't try and hide it! - the main influences on how I GM 4e are HeroWars/Quest, Maelstrom Storytelling, and Burning Wheel. 4e is not identical to any of these games, either mechanically or in terms of how the fiction is created among the participants (and of course they all differ from one another). But in terms of the expectations these games have about player participation in shaping the fiction, and the GM's responsibility to build the game around the thematic concerns the players evince by the way they build and play their PCs, I think there is a high degree of affinity.

 

[BryonD]

To be frankly honest? No. Not in the slightest.

For one, you're talking about a level of immersion that, IMO, is impossible in D&D. I mean, after the first round of combat, most groups sound like a rather complicated version of Bingo. Character's in stories don't crack wise at the table. They don't make Monte Python (or pick your geek cultural reference of choice) jokes. On and on and on.

Players in D&D are players first. The game is FAR too mechanical to ever be anything else. The idea that D&D is as immersive as you're claiming, to me, is so far beyond anything I've seen or heard anywhere that it's not even close to reality.

OK, so you are simply flat out stating that the game experience as I enjoy is inconceivable to you.

The next time someone says to you that 4E feels like a board game to them, remember that they may simply be speaking from a perspective in which that makes perfect sense to them.

If what you say is universally true, why do you think I've been sticking to my point for so long?

And, lastly, I do find it a little sad that that you not only can't achieve the immersion I'm speaking about, but can't even accept that it is possible.

I've been debating with you for years and now you flat out state that the topic is imperceptible to you. It is like we have been debating the merits of Picasso vs. Monet and now you throw out that you are blind.

Do you REALLY mean what you said, or were you simply wildly over-stating in order to make a point? I truly hope it is the later.