D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[Crazy Jerome]

I see that fatigue points have that connection baked into the mechanics before play, whereas Come and Get It needs that connection created at run-time by the players.

That is, it's not "disassociated" but rather late associated instead of early associated.

There are certainly different advantages and disadvantages to late and early binding, but there is nothing inherently borked with either. Now if when you go to look up something late, you can't find it, that's another issue. It's not about the binding but the configuration.

 

[LostSoul]

That is, it's not "disassociated" but rather late associated instead of early associated.

I think - maybe - the big point is that the mechanics are connected to the game world by the designers in the game text instead of by the players. I don't even think the DM could connect the mechanics - then the DM would have to tell you what your PC was doing*.

Again, if that's true, then the players don't have the responsibility to connect the mechanics to the game world during play. The designers have done it for them. Perhaps that frees the player to more closely identify with his or her PC?

Maybe - but then isn't the choice the player makes "What shall my PC do in the game world from this list of pre-set options"? Or maybe - this is probably closer to the truth - the player declares an in-game action and the DM has the responsibility to select the mechanics that are most closely associated with it. That might free the player to identify with his or her PC.

* - That actually sounds similar to: the player makes an attack roll, the dice are rolled, and the DM narrates both the outcome and the PC's action. "I hit AC 21, 8 damage." "You slash at his belly and leave a thin trail of blood."

 

[pemerton]

I think director stance in my game is a little more nuanced. I don't grant players the authority to make declarations about areas of the game world in which they don't have control

<snip>

if the DM doesn't know something about the game world, he or she is advised to make a random roll (I suggest 1d6 as it's clean and easy) in order to remain impartial.

A canny player can ask something about the game world, trigger that roll, and make decisions based on the information the DM gives in return. In this way there's a small amount of directorial power granted to the players.

I think this is a very common and traditional approach to RPG play: the player asks about some aspect of the gameworld, hoping to provoke an affirmative (or, I think less often, a negative) reply from the GM, in order to exploit the content of that reply in some subsequent piece of action resolution.

If you look at play advice from the mid-to-late 80s through to at least the mid-90s, it is fairly common to see discussions of the extent to which such requests/queries by the player must be "in character", and what exactly that means (eg how hopeful is my PC allowed to be in looking around the room and wondering if it contains a hidden trap door?) Those sorts of discussions seem pretty clearly focused on a question of the degree of director stance authority that players are to be permitted to enjoy.

As my hit points go down, I am finding it harder and harder to prevent a serious attack from getting through. Do you doubt as you take more wounds, grow more tired, etc... that you don't realize this? That last attack you blocked was real close. The next one might get through.

But the first one might also have got through! I mean, the whole logic of losing 8 hit points from your total, and having 70-odd left, is that it was a near thing, that grazed you only because of your cat-like reflexes. Yet the player whose PC is on 1 hp has certain knowledge that his/her PC cannot turn any more hits into grazes.

The blood I've lost already has slowed me down.

I think you have missed what is "dissociative" about hit points. The "knowing that I'm tired and battered and likely to fail soon in defence" is not the problem - that fact that I am apparently feeling this way and yet quite as able as ever to run, jump, climb, swim, shoot a bow or cast a spell, however, seems suspiciously similar to being "too tired to use an encounter power" and yet quite able to do all those same things.

I agree with Balesir here - the blood I've lost has already slowed me down, except it hasn't, because I can still move at full speed! Have full AC! etc. (Contrast Rolemaster, which has a fairly rich penalty system for fatigue, blood loss, bruising, and more serious injuries - and a correlatively rich healing system.)

I explain the fact that I fight on while wounded as cinematic heroism. I agree that it is not realistic. But it is not dissociative. There is a difference.

Suppose someone says, "Well, I explain martial encounter and daily powers as cinematic fighting styles and exploitations of the openings that present themselves. So they're not dissociative." I don't see how that is any different.

Upthread Underman expressed a dislike for my suggested gonzo fantasy narration of a bard's Vicious Mockery of an ooze. Which is fine - one person's "cinematic" or "gonzo" is another person's "ludicrous" or "ridiculous"! But that you don't like the "cinematic fighting technique" explanation of encounter powers doesn't tell us much about them as a mechanic - it only tells us about you and your preferences!

You confuse abstraction with dissociation.

I think the reason your onto this example is because in the past hit points were dissociative for you. The way you thought of them etc... But for those of us with issues with dissociative mechanics we didn't think about them in the same way. That is the beauty of a good abstraction. You can go either way.

<snip>

You likely tried to make hit points more realistic by surrounding them with dissociative mechanical explanations. Thats fine for you because we can each do our own thing. With the daily martial power, we can't escape the dissociation.

But in the same way that 1 attack per minute in AD&D is an abstraction, so one Rain of Blows per 5 minutes in 4e is an abstraction - an abstraction of the vagaries of combat, and positioning, and opportunities etc. Just as Open Locks being limited to 1 try per level is an abstraction, so is Rain of Blows never working after the first time that you try it.

Heck, even Come and Get It can be played in this way (though that may not work so well if pits and other interesting terrain are involved - it may depend on the details). The fighter in my game mostly used a halberd, and his Come and Get It is generally narrated as a consequence of deft use of his halberd to wrongfoot and snare his opponents.

What if one player is using original pre-nerfed CaGI and narrates it in a way that bothers everyone else at the table and ruins their immersion?

The mindset of, "I have 200 HP left, I'm going to jump off this cliff because it's impossible for the fall to kill me" is a ridiculous one.

<snip>

if the purpose at the table is to enhance immersion the table doesn't go to lengths to use ridiculous reasoning, or description. So the above example can be described in a more "immersion enhancing" form, "I'm at the edge of this cliff with the enemies in hot pursuit. If I time my jump right I might be able to break my fall on those tree branches below and not kill myself."

Did the underlying rules, all of a sudden, change to make one more palatable than the other? No. The player/DM used the "genre convention" to remain immersed.

I think that D'karr's hit point example equally addresses the Come and Get It issue.

It comes round to the turn of the player of the fighter. The player moves her token (or miniature) into the middle of a throng of enemies, and says "I'm using Come and Get It"), and then starts moving the enemies into their new positions. How is this, as such, going to spoil anyone's immersion? The fighter - an obvious melee combatant - has moved into the middle of a throng of enemies, and they close in - what is immersion-breaking about that?

Now if one or most of the enemies are archers, or ranged casters, or whatever, maybe some more fancy narration is required. In my own game, in over 10 levels of play with (unerrrated) Come and Get It, that has come up once that I can recollect (the first time the power was used, in fact). Immersion, and the capacity for immersion, survived the experience.

I think what bothers me and I think you is something that is definable.

<snip>

But whether it dissociates us is subjective. Obviously I'm assuming no one likes to be dissociated but I also believe some people are nearly impervious to it.

The experience may be definable. What is in dispute is whether there is some distinctive mechanical feature. I haven't reallly got a handle on it yet, though it's connected to metagaming, to causal correlation of resolution procedure to ingame fiction, perhaps also to stance. But not in any straightforward way, because some mechanics which are dubious under one or more of these criteria (like hit points) get a pass.

There is a connection here to the alleged contrast between abstraction with dissociation. I suggested that Rain of Blows, and even Come and Get It, can be treated as abstractions (of positioning, opportunity, etc) in the same way as hit points and combat turn procedures can be. But obviously there are ways of using encounter and daily powers that are not simply abstractions in that way. For example, a player of a 4e fighter might play more like the player of an AD&D wizard, carefully calculating and rationing and optimising his/her power use, just like the wizard player calculates and rations and optimises his/her spell use. And clearly that is not just abstracting away the details of in-combat decision-making.

But hit points can be played in exactly the same way: a player can work out the odds of being hit or suffering various forms of injury, of making or failing saving throws, and the like, and work out an optimum plan (for engaging enemies, or for moving through a trapped area, or whatever it might be). And at this point hit points are not just an abstraction of battle fatigue. They are being calculated and rationed and optimised like any other limited resource. If you avoid doing this with hit points, in order to preserve immersion, then my advice would be that, if for some reason you find yourself playing a game laden with limited-use martial powers, avoid doing it with those powers too. If other people start playing their martial powers in that way, and it bothers you, then deal with it the same way you would deal with the hit point optimiser. Etc.

Which goes back to my main contention: hit points are no less dissociated than limited-use martial powers. And whatever techniques one uses at the table to reconcile hit points with immersion, if you find yourself playing with limited-used martia powers then use the same techniques, whatever they happen to be.

And if for whatever reason you can't - eg you can handle hit points as an abstraction of pantherish twists that turn strong blows into grazes, but you can't handle encounter powers as an abstraction of pantherish twists that allow, right now (but not necessarily in 6 seconds time), two foes to be struck - then I don't think anyone is trying to make you use them.

But I'm not really interested in being told that, because I can perform, when necessary, this feat of aesthetic gymnastics, I'm "nearly impervious to dissociation" and am playing a tactical skirmish game loosely linked by freeform improv.

 

[pemerton]

I wrote a proposed fatigue point system on the WOTC boards

<snip>

With such a system encounter based powers could be used.

The way I look at it, the reason fatigue points are part of the world in the first place is clear: to limit the number of times a PC can use their super-moves, ie it's explicitly gamist, and not a modeling methodology.

<snip>

So they're explicitly part of the game world, except in the ways they aren't (when they're just a transparent metagame mechanic).

<snip>

When I DM, the "reality" of the setting comes from words I speak aloud. The rules are just a bunch of guidelines for resolving low-level actions. They aren't, and aren't intended to be, the primary lens by which I-as-my-character understand the fictional world the game takes place in. The rules are what I-as-a-player need to know, in order to get things done.

I agree with Mallus here.

If you write a fatigue-point system that is clearly and transparently designed as a balance mechanism, which has no connection to other aspects of exhaustion (eg running, jumping, dodging, climbing, dehydration etc) and has as its sole purpose in play the rationing of player actions, and then you cling to that system as integral to your immersion in the fiction, you've moved a long way from the way that I play an RPG.

My immersion in the ingame situation is grounded in that situation, and the outcomes of my PC's engagement with it. The mechanical techniques are not irrelevant to my enjoyment, but are pretty clearly secondary to my immersion.

My main objection to combat by way of hit point attrition, for example, isn't that it is unrealistic. It's that it's boring to resolve, and doesn't produce exciting situations. One way to correct this, for me, is to go in the Runequest/Rolemaster/critt-ish/rocket-tag direction. Another way is to go in the 4e direction, of making conditions and debuffs of various sorts a central feature of combat resolution. Either way facilitates immersion in the ingame situation, by making it more exciting - and hence generating, in me, an emotional state closer to that which is apposite to the ingame situation.

I think there is a difference. The fatigue point system is saying, "In the game world your guy only has so much energy to use special manoeuvres; we use Fatigue Points to abstract that energy." Fatigue points are explicitly part of the game world.

To me, this is like the following explanation of hit points: "In the game world your guy only has so much luck and energy to dodge and twist when being struck by heavy blows; we use Hit Points to abstract that luck and energy".

I mean, it's fine as far as it goes: it's a fantasy game, and we can stipulate whatever features of the gameworld we like. But what are we really stipulating? I could stipulate that the fantasy world contains square circles, but what is the force of such a stipulation? The GM narrates that my guy sees a building in the shape of a square circle - what am I meant to make of that? Can I take cover around a corner, or not? (I think this is partly the thinking behind [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s discussion, upthread, of dragons and giant arthropods.)

So this "energy" that we have abstracted away as Fatigue Points (or Hit Points): it's a type of energy that I can only use to make special manoeuvres (or to duck heavy blows, as the case may be), but I can't use it to run faster, or climb walls, or hold my breath, or throw a javelin further; I can have all of it left even though I'm too tired to dodge (because I'm at full Fatigue Points but down to 1 hp); I can have none of it left, yet am still dodging perfectly well (zero fatigue points, full or near-full hp). What the hell is it again?

I just can't accept that one can create a coherent and immersive fiction by sheer stipulation of unexplained, unanalysed, conceptually underdeveloped phenomena. Sheer stipulation, plus reiterated chanting of "It's an abstraction", isn't enough.

(The history of the development of spell points in Rolemaster is a nice example of how this can play out. Originally, power point expenditure does not cause any penalties or exhaustion. But this seems odd - why can't I keep casting spells, if I'm not tired? So then - in RMCII - an exhaustion penatly for power point use is introduced. But this hoses fighter/mages, who suddenly suck in combat just at the point when they also have no spells left. So in RMSS, the spell point penalty only affects casting rolls: as I cast more spells, my ability to cast gets worse, until I can't cast any more at all. This is treading a fine line - positing spell points not as a model of fatigue in general, but rather of some special "mana battery" phenomenon.

Tunnels & Trolls just bites the bullet, and deducts spell costs from Stamina - which has the genre-breaking side effect that strong mages are also ultra-buff!)

I think - maybe - the big point is that the mechanics are connected to the game world by the designers in the game text instead of by the players. I don't even think the DM could connect the mechanics - then the DM would have to tell you what your PC was doing*.

<snip>

* - That actually sounds similar to: the player makes an attack roll, the dice are rolled, and the DM narrates both the outcome and the PC's action. "I hit AC 21, 8 damage." "You slash at his belly and leave a thin trail of blood."

Which tends to reinforce my perplexity at how 4e is suddenly this radically dissociating game compared to AD&D or 3E.

if that's true, then the players don't have the responsibility to connect the mechanics to the game world during play. The designers have done it for them. Perhaps that frees the player to more closely identify with his or her PC?

Maybe - but then isn't the choice the player makes "What shall my PC do in the game world from this list of pre-set options"? Or maybe - this is probably closer to the truth - the player declares an in-game action and the DM has the responsibility to select the mechanics that are most closely associated with it. That might free the player to identify with his or her PC.

Now you seem to be describing something very close to either freeform play, or GM-fiat AD&D 2nd ed/White Wolf play (the sort of thing the Forge hates).

That's a long way from the sort of game that I'm interested in. And also, in my view, a very contentious gold standard for immersion. (But does at least take us from "dissociation" to "brain damage", if by a somewhat ciruitous route!)

I tend to like this idea (random "openings"), although I'm not sure how to apply it equally/fairly to all classes.

Roll a die at the start of each round to see what form of "chaotic energy" is permeating the area for the mages to exploit. This could easily be linked to descriptors, to maximum level of spell castable depending on degree of permeation, etc.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Again, if that's true, then the players don't have the responsibility to connect the mechanics to the game world during play. The designers have done it for them. Perhaps that frees the player to more closely identify with his or her PC?

Maybe - but then isn't the choice the player makes "What shall my PC do in the game world from this list of pre-set options"? Or maybe - this is probably closer to the truth - the player declares an in-game action and the DM has the responsibility to select the mechanics that are most closely associated with it. That might free the player to identify with his or her PC.

Certainly. Well, ok--mostly. That is, if the designer binds the mechanics to the fiction, this is about as "early association" as you can get. I guess the only way that would be sooner is if there was some kind of master plan imposed by someone else that the designer was supposed to adhere to. (As far as I know, that's never happened with a game.) It's about as far as one can get from extreme "late association", where someone binds at the time of the action, superseded only by rationalizations after the fact.

Even in extreme early association, however, someone at the table is responsible for making sure that the fiction is consistent with the particular techniques that the chosen system supports. And the player is responsible for accepting the conventions of these techniques, such as getting into a frame of mind where, say, "hit points getting whittled away" fits the combat as visualized.

There's no doubt that these extremes are different, and come with different demands. Going for pure designer association is akin to "I'm not going to associate myself or even allow the DM to do so. The author of the game must make all the associations." Where a game that was pure late association would be, "The designer can't make any associations, except perhaps as examples. All associations will be made at the time by the players, including the DM where warranted."

Nothing wrong with any of that. If someone wants to say that they'll deal with mechanics where the associations are made for them, by someone else, I suppose they can try. I don't actually believe that's possible, because I think any playable game will always require some associations by the players, if only to put their particular, acceptable slant on existing mechanics (e.g. hit points). Humans classify and make associations by reflex. It's part of what defines us. But there is no way to prove my belief. I do believe that it is possible for a designer to make enough associations, and make them slick enough, that some players might feel that it had all been done for them--which is close enough for practible purposes.

Also certainly, the earlier the association, the easier the association, and the more "natural feeling" the association, then the easier it will be to immerse. RAW 4E's on the other end of all three of those criteria, which is why immersion in 4E is an acquired taste--you've got to reach the point where late association is easy and feels natural before you can immerse.

 

[Manbearcat]

<snip>

To me, this is like the following explanation of hit points: "In the game world your guy only has so much luck and energy to dodge and twist when being struck by heavy blows; we use Hit Points to abstract that luck and energy".

I mean, it's fine as far as it goes: it's a fantasy game, and we can stipulate whatever features of the gameworld we like. But what are we really stipulating? I could stipulate that the fantasy world contains square circles, but what is the force of such a stipulation? The GM narrates that my guy sees a building in the shape of a square circle - what am I meant to make of that? Can I take cover around a corner, or not? (I think this is partly the thinking behind @Manbearcat 's discussion, upthread, of dragons and giant arthropods.)

So this "energy" that we have abstracted away as Fatigue Points (or Hit Points): it's a type of energy that I can only use to make special maneuvers (or to duck heavy blows, as the case may be), but I can't use it to run faster, or climb walls, or hold my breath, or throw a javelin further; I can have all of it left even though I'm too tired to dodge (because I'm at full Fatigue Points but down to 1 hp); I can have none of it left, yet am still dodging perfectly well (zero fatigue points, full or near-full hp). What the hell is it again?

I just can't accept that one can create a coherent and immersive fiction by sheer stipulation of unexplained, unanalysed, conceptually underdeveloped phenomena. Sheer stipulation, plus reiterated chanting of "It's an abstraction", isn't enough.

<snip>

Very much in the ballpark, yes. This is the logical proof for my invoking physics incoherencies in the implied setting:

1) For a proper Simulation, it is imperative that the processes that underwrite the greater simulation (the world's physics, the coupled cause and effect of task resolution) are internally consistent. If you state that you are playing and/or advocating the Simulation (and the underpinning Process-Sim) of a (i) High Fantasy World (magic can be what you define it) with (ii) real-world physical laws (Conservation of Energy, Conservation of Mass, 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, gravity, atmospheric friction, lift, drag, biophysics/kinesiology) that bind the mundane, in order to maintain internal consistency and corresponding fidelity to the model you are Simulating you must apply this "binding the mundane by physical laws" standard universally.

2) These real world physical laws are utterly violated by "ever-present, very genre-relevant" mundane creatures and their biophysics/kinesiology and modes of propulsion.

3) Mundane martial characters (Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, etc) are bound by these physical laws.

4) Standard not universally applied. Simulation = failed.

These are not abstractions. Intellectual honesty and thoroughness (logic) dictates that these should break immersion because the "implied setting" is now proven nonsensical. These are double standards not because of the convenience of mere abstraction (they aren't abstractions). They are tenured, Legacy-driven implied setting incoherencies. They get a pass merely because they are Legacy issues.

If proper Simulation and Immersion were at the apex of our playstyle aims then to "save the sim" and maintain coherency of the physics of the "implied setting", we can do one of two things:

- Upturn 3 on its face. Unbind mundane, martial characters by these "already violated and therefore nonsensical" physical law constraints. Fighters, Rogues, Rangers SHOULD be performing physical-law-defying feats such as crazy feats of athleticism that defy gravity and our understanding of real world kinesiology/biophysics (crazy leaps, speed, strength, etc).

- Remove Flight as a mode of travel from Gargantuan and larger creatures and remove Flight from Large creatures without requisite trim characteristics and propulsive thrust/lift maintenance. All Arthropods are now the size of a chicken or smaller.

However, we won't do this. These are tenured, Legacy-driven implied setting incoherencies. They get a pass merely because they are Legacy issues and therefore we are comfortable with them. Because of this untenable position, we will willfully turn a blind eye to this issue and maintain the position that Simulation and Immersion are apex considerations for our playstyle.

I think you will find your parallel to HP within.

 

[Manbearcat]

Regarding a "fatigue point system", if you're running a proper Simulation and interested in immersion derived from it, then, again, you need to apply these physical laws that bind your "fatigue point system" universally. You can't apply them here and there arbitrarily. What's more, they need to properly model real world "fast-twitch musculature endurance" and "slow-twitch musculature endurance" and the body's response to various stressors - physical pain, mental hardship, morale loss, blood pressure loss. You should probably have a Saving Throw to not trigger an outright Vasovagal response after a certain "stressor-threshold" is reached. You should probably have a death-spiral mechanic. You should have loss of physical characterstics (Speed, Strength, Dexterity, etc) contingent upon "location damaged."

I just don't understand pretensions to "simulation" and "process-sim" and the verisimilitude that it alleges to engender when the standards aren't universally, objectively applied and what is really happening is "kinda-sorta-sim...only when its not". And then grievances against other things that are "anti-verisimilitude" and go against the grain of this "kinda-sorta-sim...only when its not" when its already borked.

If folks would just acknowledge that DnD is "kinda-sorta-sim...only when its not" and that we all have our own preferences and thresholds for Gamist conceits, mechanical abstractions, "implied setting incoherencies", mechanics that aren't hard-coded as Process-Sim associated directly from actor stance/PC-player conduit perspective, etc...and that all of these tastes are subjective and table-specific, a hefty portion of the edition wars and the willful marginalizing of playstyles would fade into the background.

 

[Balesir]

I think - maybe - the big point is that the mechanics are connected to the game world by the designers in the game text instead of by the players. I don't even think the DM could connect the mechanics - then the DM would have to tell you what your PC was doing*.

Again, if that's true, then the players don't have the responsibility to connect the mechanics to the game world during play. The designers have done it for them. Perhaps that frees the player to more closely identify with his or her PC?

You may have a point, here, but I think if that is so it creates its own nest of problems and issues. The first to spring to mind is the status of combat as a skill.

Let's look at a skill that folk might be more conversant with the realities of: metalworking (I'm assuming a few folk will have done a smattering of this at school, as I did, if not later as part of technical or engineering training). If a character undertakes a metalworking task, how should the mechanics go about "linking" the mechanics to the fiction? The range and variety of techniques and actions used while metalcrafting are way too diverse to adequately cover the "how a character might achieve this task" without a treatise of some considerable length, unless either (a) the task is extremely simple or (b) the players are already intimately conversant with metalcrafting techniques. A rule set that says "metalcrafting is the skill of shaping metal by bashing it with a hammer" might get an "explanatory" pass from someone who knows absolutely nothing about the topic, but to most people it will pretty soon be clear that this is hopelessly insufficient.

For skills - like metalcrafting - therefore, it seems to me that we need to be able to accept some measure of "this guy is using a range of techniques - I'm not well informed enough to even be able to say what they all are - that can achieve the endpoint dictated by the outcome resolution". Most RPGers seem eminently able to manage this, on occasion, even though it gets somewhat contentious where social skills involving influencing, deception and persuasion are concerned.

And then we come to combat. It seems to me - especially reading over the last few pages, that there is some reluctance to view armed, hand-to-hand combat as a real skill. What I mean by that is that there is a tendency to see it as merely "hitting things with a sword", rather than using a whole range of techniques - physical, psychological, perceptual and through body conditioning - to achieve a whole range of outcomes. The idea that fooling your enemy about your intentions does not form an essential part of "the skill of combat", for example, is particularly egregious.

I think this "de-skilling" of combat leads also to the idea that the cause-effect relation for a combat action must be the exact same pairing every time. If I said "my character uses woodworking to make a chest", we wouldn't hesitate to imagine that he might use a whole range of techniques and methods to make a chest that could fit a variety of detailed descriptions and a variety of styles. And yet, when my character uses "Come and Get It", there must be one specific technique that "explains" the action and result every single time. Does it really seem that implausible that "dumb fighters" have developed actual skills that allow them to select from a range of techniques and tricks that generate specific types of desired reaction in foes in battle, much like any craftsman selects techniques from a repertoire in order to best form a crafted object for a specific purpose?

 

[Balesir]

In order for a fatigue point system to work these things have to be true...
1. The power has to at least seem fatiguing. No "Come and Get It".
2. All powers are restored after 10 minutes. Long term fatigue is not well modeled by powers being on or off. Thus dailies in particular are the most dissociative when it comes to martial activity.
3. Each individual power is not expended. Rather the pool of powers expend some kind of fatigue points. If encounter 1 uses X energy and encounter 2 uses X energy then if I have X energy left I can do either. If I don't then I can't do either. Being able to do 1 and not 2 is dissociative.

Now I'm not saying I love the above approach. I was offering a fig leaf to see if anyone on the other side thought it was interesting. I mostly prefer at-will powers for martial types.

Others have pointed out that the results this would produce - of "spamming" the "best" powers repeatedly - would break the believability of the system for some (including me), but I'll add another issue. This doesn't address "fooling" or "surprising" the opponents with a move - and thus eliminates a vital aspect of any martial art's point.

I guess you could, each time a "fooling" move was used, hand out "immunity tokens" to the creatures the move was used on - but is the extra complication really worth it?

Oh - also, why is "ten minutes later you've recovered" more plausible than "after a five minute breather you've recovered"?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I suppose because process is part of the immersion of many people. They tried your approach and lost at least half if not more of their playerbase.

The biggest problem 4e had at the launch was that it was very badly explained in places. Skill challenges, martial encounter powers, etc. And they wrote the rulebooks as books to be used at the table rather than books where the game experience starts by reading the book.

Well hopefully the powers are written to be situationally relevant. I do think when standing toe to toe and slugging it out though what else is there but attack for a martial character?

This tells me a lot about your standard of immersion. "What else is there but attack"? Nothing at all - if you aren't picturing yourself as a warrior - or are in a ten foot room fighting an orc guarding a pie mano-a-mano, and the pie isn't even on a table. Or you are on a fencing piste and not allowed to step out of your five foot lane.

Otherwise "standing toe to toe and slugging it out" is odd. First you should be circling, aiming for their weaker side (doubly so for sword and board fighters). Second if there's a table in the room, force the orc into it. Or make sure he doesn't you. Use any debris on the floor - he might slip. Better if there's something effective like potholes or puddles. You're a skilled warrior - use the environment to your advantage. And then feint the orc out at times.

Finally, slugging it out mano-a-mano implies that you don't have a party with you. Rather than you're trying to distract the enemy so the rogue can get his kidneys. Or set him up for the ranger to shoot him. Mano-a-mano is fundamentally solipsistic.

In short, if you are really slugging it out mano-a-mano most of the time then either you're in a really odd situation (a one on one fight in a sand covered arena) or you're in an incredibly boring session of D&D.

Basically the dice determine fate which is far more palatable to me than letting the player dictate fate.

But the player should dictate what he is trying to do before rolling the dice. This is the mistake made by 13th Age and seriously leads to a disempowering experience. The dice do, after all, determine fate by the to hit roll. But the player must decide what and how they are trying to do.

I tend to like this idea (random "openings"), although I'm not sure how to apply it equally/fairly to all classes. Maybe it wouldn't need to be. I'd also want to be sure and have it work without slowing down combat. Maybe fighters roll an extra "opening" die and its result points to a "stance" or "form" table entry which they can elect to use or not this round. As fighters level up, they get new and improved "openings" to put in their stance tables.

You don't need to. Wizards and sorcerors have fundamentally big and simple effects. A fireball doesn't care which foot the target's weight is on, and spells take seconds to cast. It's only the non-casters (chiefly fighters and rogues) who care about this. And those two classes should be fundamentally the best at it.

Edit: And I don't understand any way in which ten minute recharges are superior to five minute rests either. They are far more arbitrary, far more book keeping, far less immersionist (take a breather to recover your fatigue), and inferior in just about every other way I can think of.