D&D 3E/3.5 Ed Wars: 4E Fan Finally Gets 3E Fans' POV

[Obryn]

(1) Different groups like different things. Hooray!

(2) The shop owner's argument is kind of specious. "Oh, YOUR group just roleplays because you have a veteran" is unconvincing to me. I don't find vagueness in rules to be a convincing asset to roleplaying. I'm glad that others do, but I think as a general blanket statement about "new roleplayers" it's specious at best.

In other words, I don't think "cops and robbers" has more or better roleplay than D&D simply because it has less rules.

-O

 

[Argyle King]

Oh definitely, I'm not arguing that, but that's not actually the system itself either. Using 4E as an example, the system works really well for which ever type of play you want, but the early published WotC modules were absolutely horrible for presenting a diverse style of play. I think they should have paid much more attention to that when introducing a new system. It felt to me like they thought "We'll put this out and let the experienced gamers run with it first, then we'll "Red Box" it later for new players.

Actually, it is illogical. As Umbran noted, presentation (and I'd also say expectation) is key. No skill system encourages or discourages role playing, for example. However, presentation of how to use that skill system in the game does encourage usage.

Valid opinions, but I disagree with them.

Personally, I believe that the mechanical structure of a game does have a relationship with the non-mechanical elements of a game. I do not believe that all systems are equally capable of telling all types of stories. Capable? Yes. Equally capable? My opinion is no.

 

[Obryn]

Valid opinions, but I disagree with them.

Personally, I believe that the mechanical structure of a game does have a relationship with the non-mechanical elements of a game. I do not believe that all systems are equally capable of telling all types of stories. Capable? Yes. Equally capable? My opinion is no.

Systems matter, absolutely.

My own disagreement is twofold.

(1) The notion that "less system = more roleplay" is nonsense, IMO, unless your only definition of "roleplay" is "doing stuff never addressed in the rules." Needless to say, I think that's a poor definition. Using a system's rules is part of roleplaying, just as much as talking outside them is. Tactical combat is no less roleplaying than talking through tricky ways to open chests.

(2) The assertion that systems work better for some sorts of games than others is (imo) obvious. What many people fail to acknowledge is the other side of that coin - that roleplaying games are an interplay between the system and the group. And that some groups tell certain types of stories better with System A, while others might tell the same sorts of stories better with System B. I think the failure to acknowledge this is at the heart of a lot of edition warring.

-O

 

[Jester David]

Last week I heard the first real compelling argument in favor if 3E/Pathfinder against 4E – the roleplaying element.
The guy who owns our FLGS told me he watches kids playing both versions. The 3E kids roleplay and get into the story. The 4E kids are only about “leveling.”

I told him we’ve never seen that at our game group, or my teenage nephew’s.
He countered that it’s likely me, as a 30-year gamer, who’s probably driving that roleplaying element. It’s true, I DMed the nephew’s group through 1st level. Then their genius-prodigy friend took over. They’re also all in Speech and Debate or Drama Club.

He said that up till 4E, there was enough vagueness in the rules that players were forced to do some original thinking. The simplified rules encourage roleplaying in experienced gamers, but stifle it in new gamers.

I'm a big proponent of 3e/PF over 4e and am very happy with 5e so far. And I can't entirely agree. Not 100%.
Audience and player expectation have a tonne to do with how they play. And the DM can really influence how the players think about the game and play. The 4e game I ran was gr all World of Warcraft players and had its share of combat, but I worked to establish role-playing and tell different types of story.

That said, the books do need to do more to set the tone, tell DMs and players how to role-play and give them the tools to do so.

If the only tools in your toolbox are hammers every problem looks like a nail. 4e offers a lot of tools that are hammers. A skilled craftsman can do a lot with a hammer, but everyone else just hits things.

 

[Obryn]

That said, the books do need to do more to set the tone, tell DMs and players how to role-play and give them the tools to do so.

The insane thing is, the 4e DMGs (both of them; can't speak to the DM's Kit, but I'd be shocked if it were different) does exactly this. It's all about improv, saying yes, and helping your players have a fun time.

It needed to be pushed on the player side more, I agree, but it's seriously all there to even casual perusal.

Now, with that said, WotC's 4e adventures up until about the Essentials releases were pathetically bad, ignoring every good piece of advice the DMG suggested. I think it was a combination of the delve format, their general lack of knowledge about their own system, and page limits wherein they apparently needed to fit 3 levels of XP within 64 pages. Regardless, they shine a huge spotlight on 4e's worst flaws rather than celebrate the stuff it's actually good at.

-O

 

[jbear]

The insane thing is, the 4e DMGs (both of them; can't speak to the DM's Kit, but I'd be shocked if it were different) does exactly this. It's all about improv, saying yes, and helping your players have a fun time.

It needed to be pushed on the player side more, I agree, but it's seriously all there to even casual perusal.

Now, with that said, WotC's 4e adventures up until about the Essentials releases were pathetically bad, ignoring every good piece of advice the DMG suggested. I think it was a combination of the delve format, their general lack of knowledge about their own system, and page limits wherein they apparently needed to fit 3 levels of XP within 64 pages. Regardless, they shine a huge spotlight on 4e's worst flaws rather than celebrate the stuff it's actually good at.

-O

I think you make some very good points here.

The spirit of 4e Dming straight from its bible (the DMGs) heavily heavily encourages roleplay and improvising. The adventures ...not so much. That's a real problem if you are the type of DM that runs the adventure as is.

If, on the other hand, you are the type of Dm that picks and chooses from he adventures and then fully fleshes them out to make them awesome ... well, then 4e is really really cool.

While I agree that different rule systems can influence play style, I think the DM and the players themselves are a more important factor. Basically, if you are there to have fun and play in the spirit of the game ... well any game is cool. 4e is not an exception.

4e is totally improvable, but (imho) it's a fantastic start, as I like to think of it. What it lacks, and where it falls down ... well that's where it is up to me to fill in.

And while I like playing Pathfinder (though I still don't know even half of the rules) I would be far more hesitant to DM it. Whereas 4e I can Dm effortlessly. That is the only difference that their needs to be for me to chose one system as my preferred one over the other.

But when it comes down to it, players at my table would be having a similar experience whether I ran one or the other (again imho). I have expectations for my players and non negotiables. I see rules as guidelines, but my biggest guide is where the Fun goes.

 

[Jester David]

The insane thing is, the 4e DMGs (both of them; can't speak to the DM's Kit, but I'd be shocked if it were different) does exactly this. It's all about improv, saying yes, and helping your players have a fun time.

It needed to be pushed on the player side more, I agree, but it's seriously all there to even casual perusal.

You kinda make my point by saying it's only in the DM book, which many of the players will not read.

Amusingly, I was just saying how bad the example of improvisation on page 42 was. It's meant to be an example of something rules do not cover, but then it goes and describes a Bull Rush. And overtly comments how underwhelming improvisation (according to the rules) compared to using a power.

I don't recall seeing much of this in the DMG 2. But it's been a while and I wasn't looking so I could be wrong.

Essentials did have more examples, but mostly tied to skills. And still a vast minority of the book.
Which is the thing, even in the DM books the advise was subsumed by combat. There was two pages on improvisation, and just advice on configurations of monster roles received more advice. The part of the game that required the most skill and DM adjudication received the littlest attention.
And while there was the three non-Monster or campaign DM products, there was how many player books?
And, in the book on being a good player, the book on running a character, how much talk was there on improvisation, how to improvise, when to improvise, etc.

Now, with that said, WotC's 4e adventures up until about the Essentials releases were pathetically bad, ignoring every good piece of advice the DMG suggested. I think it was a combination of the delve format, their general lack of knowledge about their own system, and page limits wherein they apparently needed to fit 3 levels of XP within 64 pages. Regardless, they shine a huge spotlight on 4e's worst flaws rather than celebrate the stuff it's actually good at.

The delve format was pretty bad. Even encounter had to be tactical because the format included maps and monsters. And had to be combat, or they'd have spent all that time formatting and working on the encounter for nothing.
It's pretty emblematic of 4e's problems.

I did a blog a while back on why 4e was all combat, (cheekily named because a more apt name would have been "why, all other things being equal, 4e will slide towards combat") and one of the points was how encounters were designed.
Look at the 5e playtest: I've heard of numerous groups just charging overwhelming foes and getting slaughtered, because they've been trained by two editions to just assume an encounter is balanced and a fair fight. And if the fight is fair, there's no incentive to think of other solutions.

Very, very little of the combat centralism was purposeful design, but rather a series of accidents: synergies from individual improvements to that game that, taken as a whole, encouraged combat.

A good and skilled DM can sway away from this. And players used to improvisation and more narrative combat might not notice.

 

[Obryn]

Amusingly, I was just saying how bad the example of improvisation on page 42 was. It's meant to be an example of something rules do not cover, but then it goes and describes a Bull Rush. And overtly comments how underwhelming improvisation (according to the rules) compared to using a power.
...
Which is the thing, even in the DM books the advise was subsumed by combat. There was two pages on improvisation, and just advice on configurations of monster roles received more advice. The part of the game that required the most skill and DM adjudication received the littlest attention.

I'm not just talking about p42. Seriously.

The first 30 pages are generalized DMing advice that includes (looking at subheadings) narration, pacing, props, skills, improvisation, and troubleshooting. Then we have 30 pages about combat and encounter building. Then the dreaded awful DMG1 skill challenges that need to just be ignored because they are horrible. Then puzzles and exploration. Then adventures, of which part is about combat but most is not. Then XP/treasure. Then the world, monster building advice, etc. It's good, generalized advice about the stuff DMs need to know when running a good, effective game that's not all about combat.

There was a short section called "improvisation" but most of the rest of the book was teaching DMs how to improvise and run games, too.

All in all, I'm not seeing a substantial difference in pagecount dedicated to combat than previous editions. Maybe you had a misprint?

I don't recall seeing much of this in the DMG 2. But it's been a while and I wasn't looking so I could be wrong.

You are. The first 30 pages are on "group storytelling." Which is all about the narrative and improvisational aspects of play, including excellent advice from Robin's Laws about player types and goals.

The delve format was pretty bad. Even encounter had to be tactical because the format included maps and monsters. And had to be combat, or they'd have spent all that time formatting and working on the encounter for nothing.
It's pretty emblematic of 4e's problems.

It was a 3.5 invention. 4e, sadly, kept it. I think it's emblematic of bad adventure design, but that's about it. It's about convenience. Sadly, it greatly limits the sorts of stories you can tell in an adventure. Which is why no competent DM writes adventures like that.

4e adventures improved markedly once this format was thrown to the wayside.

-O

 

[Jester David]

The first 30 pages are generalized DMing advice that includes (looking at subheadings) narration, pacing, props, skills, improvisation, and troubleshooting. Then we have 30 pages about combat and encounter building. Then the dreaded awful DMG1 skill challenges that need to just be ignored because they are horrible. Then puzzles and exploration. Then adventures, of which part is about combat but most is not. Then XP/treasure. Then the world, monster building advice, etc. It's good, generalized advice about the stuff DMs need to know when running a good, effective game that's not all about combat.

There was a short section called "improvisation" but most of the rest of the book was teaching DMs how to improvise and run games, too.

In this instance, I'm more talking about adjudicating improvised actions in this example. Handling unconventional thinking and plans.

And, as you point out, the sections on combat is as large as all the previous sections. And the non-combat sections are skill challenges, puzzles, and traps (with traps taking the lion's share).
It's not that they ran out of space and the hard rules took priority. The DMGs are the smallest books in the Core rules.

On paper, 4e looks great for roleplaying. There's a lot of advice given to the DM and even a small section at the front of the PHB. Credit where credit is due: 4e had more information and advice in the PHB for creating characters with personality.
But there's a lot of other things going on that encourage combat and diminish roleplaying. Real issues and problems that should be acknowledged and recognised so DMs knows how to work around them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Look at the 5e playtest: I've heard of numerous groups just charging overwhelming foes and getting slaughtered, because they've been trained by two editions to just assume an encounter is balanced and a fair fight.

A quibble: they've been trained by their DMs to assume an encounter is a fair fight.

The guys I have gamed under? No such illusions.