4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[Remathilis]

Perhaps a shorter thought on protagonism.

In 3e, if I'm playing a rogue, there are a number of creatures that are outright immune to my sneak attack. I, as the player, have absolutely no control over this. If we meet a number of plant monsters (for example), the mechanics of the game have taken me from "The master stabber" to "Commoner with a knife".

Thus, the mechanics have, by and large, removed me as a protagonist, at least in this encounter. But, say we do an entire adventure featuring plant monsters. Sure, I might do a bit of scouting, but, by and large, my other strengths - party talky guy, and party trap guy - are pretty much removed. They're plants, they don't talk. And, by and large, shambling mounds don't build traps. At least, not very complex ones.

So, now, for the next four sessions (or however long it takes to resolve the scenario), I'm largely warming the pines. Very much de-protagonized. If that's a word.

Now, sure, the DM can get around this - he can add in other scenarios, he can simply not use this scenario, or whatever. Sure, that's possible. Or, we can change the base mechanics in such a way that the Rogue character is no longer sidelined. Sneak attack works on everything is not a terribly bad house rule. How does it work? Well, that's for the table to decide, if they want to.

I realize that this answer is not acceptable at some tables. From prior conversations on these boards, I know that some groups want this sort of thing absolutely nailed down in concrete terms before play starts. And that's fair. That group should probably avoid scenarios which sideline single PC's for extended times. And that's perfectly okay. OTOH, in a system which does not deprotagonize (gack, that is such a terrible made up word) PC's, the DM is now free to create whatever scenario and then leave it to the players to determine how things work.

There is, however, a point where protagonism runs into predictability.

Pathfinder Sneak Attack works pretty much as you describe (anything with a corporeal body can be SA'd, including plants, undead, and golems). So a group of heroes making their way though a dusty crypt full of ghouls and zombies are fully capable of having their rogue deal SA damage. But the next fight involves a wraith, which by the rules is unsneak-attackable, ignores armor, and resistant to non-force magics. Suddenly, the rogue quivers knowing he's effectively out of the fight. The Fighter is nervous at the fact his platemail armor is practically cloth, the wizard starts debating how to get the most out of his attack spells which do half-damage now (save for 1/4!) and the cleric knows he's doing extra duty blowing channel energy attempts to deal solid damage against the wraith. Oh, did I mention wraith's drain levels yet?

To a certain segment of the playing population, this encounter is unfair. It has robbed the PCs to their stock tools (defender's AC, striker's damage, etc) and turned the fight to one PC with a real chance of harming it (the cleric, though the wizard and fighter can still do things at a greatly reduced effectiveness). I have robbed the group of protagonism by forcing them into an encounter with one-hand tied behind their backs. Yet, I find these are the battles that tell the best stories. The cleric boldly holding off the wraith as the rest flee; the rogue who decided to use his UMD on a scroll of magic missile, the wizard who opted to cast mage armor on the fighter, etc. It saves the game from becoming stale; using well-worn tactics (I'll hold him here, you use your wand of lightning, the rogue sneaks in, cleric heals as needed).

Sure, a whole dungeon full of wraiths seems like a bad idea, but there are times a fight where the PCs are outgunned is good, and I think the idea that all encounters are met with maximum abilities all the time makes things a tad predictable.

 

[billd91]

Dark Sun changed the fluff radically. 3e changed the fundamental game design philosophy and a lot of the trappings.

I think it's the installed player base and the lineage. D&D isn't a game, it's a closely related family of games; the Dragonlance Saga is almost entirely different from Gygaxian dungeoncrawls.

Dark Sun and Dragonlance Saga were segments within the larger identity of D&D but neither was the flagship of the core identity. Had hypothetical D&D edition x.0 been released with a focus on Dark Sun defining the metasetting, defining the abilities and cultures of the PC races and populating the monster manual, would it have been accepted as D&D? I seriously doubt it. Dark Sun is more of an example of how D&D's tropes can be reworked to fit an idiosyncratic setting idea.

 

[billd91]

There is, however, a point where protagonism runs into predictability.

Pathfinder Sneak Attack works pretty much as you describe (anything with a corporeal body can be SA'd, including plants, undead, and golems). So a group of heroes making their way though a dusty crypt full of ghouls and zombies are fully capable of having their rogue deal SA damage. But the next fight involves a wraith, which by the rules is unsneak-attackable, ignores armor, and resistant to non-force magics. Suddenly, the rogue quivers knowing he's effectively out of the fight. The Fighter is nervous at the fact his platemail armor is practically cloth, the wizard starts debating how to get the most out of his attack spells which do half-damage now (save for 1/4!) and the cleric knows he's doing extra duty blowing channel energy attempts to deal solid damage against the wraith. Oh, did I mention wraith's drain levels yet?

To a certain segment of the playing population, this encounter is unfair. It has robbed the PCs to their stock tools (defender's AC, striker's damage, etc) and turned the fight to one PC with a real chance of harming it (the cleric, though the wizard and fighter can still do things at a greatly reduced effectiveness). I have robbed the group of protagonism by forcing them into an encounter with one-hand tied behind their backs. Yet, I find these are the battles that tell the best stories. The cleric boldly holding off the wraith as the rest flee; the rogue who decided to use his UMD on a scroll of magic missile, the wizard who opted to cast mage armor on the fighter, etc. It saves the game from becoming stale; using well-worn tactics (I'll hold him here, you use your wand of lightning, the rogue sneaks in, cleric heals as needed).

Sure, a whole dungeon full of wraiths seems like a bad idea, but there are times a fight where the PCs are outgunned is good, and I think the idea that all encounters are met with maximum abilities all the time makes things a tad predictable.

I have to question whether an antagonist who shakes the PC out of his traditional methods really de-protagonizes the PC. Isn't that really more of an attitude issue with the player? He can respond to the situation with "Well, there's nothing I can do" or "Well, let's see what I can do to shake this up".

 

[Balesir]

Depending on what's going on, couldn't it be almost as bad? A level 10 Wizard rolling at +4 or +5, while a level 10 Fighter rolls at +15? If you're using scaling DCs, stuff that challenges the Fighter will basically be impossible to the Wizard, won't it? And if it's an achievable challenge for the Wizard, the Fighter basically automatically succeeds, doesn't he? That's fairly similar to how it worked in 3.5. Though, I do admit that gap has been closed.[/QUOTE [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] has answered this pretty well, already, but I'll just add a little end-note. Because the gap - as opposed to the actual values - is more static, the structure of skill challenges can remain similar. Easy DCs can still be hit by more or less anybody; setting an easy DC that everybody must make or suffer some setback (not a full "failure" per failure, but maybe a lost healing surge) is quite viable. Hard DCs will only really be within the reach of specialists, but that will be the same at all levels.

Note that the original (rough estimate) scenario I gave was only at level 8. The 4e examples were takling about Epic levels; in 3.5, at (say) level 20 the gap could easily be Fighter/Rogue +28, Wizard (still) +1. No wonder the Wizard got cold and clammy at the thought that s/he couldn't fly everywhere by that level!

In fact I've sometimes thought I could run a Glorantha game with 4e, and I never thought that about any previous edition of D&D.

Ooooh - now there's a thought! It hadn't occurred to me, but I think 4e might be a very interesting "middle way" to do Glorantha between RQ and HeroQuest. You would need a bespoke class and power set, I think, but it might even be possible to do under the OGL? Wow.

Pathfinder Sneak Attack works pretty much as you describe (anything with a corporeal body can be SA'd, including plants, undead, and golems). So a group of heroes making their way though a dusty crypt full of ghouls and zombies are fully capable of having their rogue deal SA damage. But the next fight involves a wraith, which by the rules is unsneak-attackable, ignores armor, and resistant to non-force magics. Suddenly, the rogue quivers knowing he's effectively out of the fight. The Fighter is nervous at the fact his platemail armor is practically cloth, the wizard starts debating how to get the most out of his attack spells which do half-damage now (save for 1/4!) and the cleric knows he's doing extra duty blowing channel energy attempts to deal solid damage against the wraith. Oh, did I mention wraith's drain levels yet?

I would not necessarily disagree that 4e was somewhat over-conservative with monster powers and abilities, but I really wouldn't want something as extreme as this in a few respects.

If physical attacks affect the thing at all (and, if it can make physical attacks it seems very strange that they wouldn't) then I can't really justify "no SA" except as an arbitrary nerf. Level drains are just a PITA in most ways, as far as I'm concerned - but some sort of curse effect that uses the "disease" track in 4e would be similar in the "scary" that it provides. So, basically a 4e wraith - insubstantial (halves all damage to it) and hitting non-AC defences - with hits giving a "curse" on the disease track instead of (or as well as) draining healing surges and maybe a boosted Attack Bonus would do a similar job, for me, without the troublesome elements. As an added bonus it's a lot easier to give a CR/Level to with confidence and even the damage dealers have ways to be clever in dealing with it (despite having their actual damage nerfed).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Whoa, you just took two very different issues and crammed them under one heading!

1. Fighters who can't miss and thieves who can't fail opposed skill rolls is an issue of the d20 becoming obsolete. It's a game design issue.

2. High level characters doing mile-high swan dives into lakes of lava and then climbing out ready to rumble is an issue of aesthetics. Some like it, some are ambivalent, some hate it. (I'm actually not sure this particular example is possible in any edition, except really really epic 3e...but I like the mental image!)

Neither of these is what AbdulAlhazred is talking about. (Correct me if I'm wrong, AA.) Even from level 1, 4e gives PCs protection against random death. Goblin #17 can't kill you just by a lucky roll, and unless a crazy improvised plan involves a bottomless pit with lava at the bottom, getting creative isn't going to kill you.

Right, though I'm willing to freely admit that high level AD&D isn't exactly the same as the rest of AD&D. HOWEVER when you're level 20 you are also expected to take on things that are fully capable of spattering your character all over the place with relative ease if you run out of luck, just like orcs would at level 1. 4e is all about making it all fit into the drama. Maybe you WILL fail to kill Lolth at level 30, but you'll fail dramatically, going down fighting tooth and nail and only after bad luck, bad choices, and/or dramatic necessity all conspire to make it the fun outcome. In 1e Q1 simply ended tragically with a couple failed poison saves in some random encounter I can't even remember the details of. I recall being rather disappointed. I could either 'cheat' and give the PCs plot armor, or let the story just end in a rather uninteresting way and leave all the rest of the cool material in the module on the cutting-room floor.

 

[B.T.]

"De-protagonizing" is a neat little two-dollar term that translates to "I don't like this." Best to explain why a "de-protagonizing" mechanic is bad.

 

[Balesir]

"De-protagonizing" is a neat little two-dollar term that translates to "I don't like this." Best to explain why a "de-protagonizing" mechanic is bad.

Did you read any of the rest of the thread? Because the context in which [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] coined the word was that "protagonising" had been talked about quite a bit, with some explanation of why some folk consider it "good".

 

[LostSoul]

You're right that I'm moving too quickly to railroading. But if the game isn't driven by the players' thematic choices, the theme, morals etc are going to come from the GM (or the system). For me, that's the salient feature of this sort of play.

I recently started a campaign of Star Wars d6, and I think it's a classic example of a high-concept sim game. In this game, the thematic choices, theme, morals, and the rest don't come from the GM but instead the source material - for us, this is the version of "A New Hope" where Han shot first. As GM, I am running the game using "pemertonian scene-framing", aimed at giving the players the opportunity to act like Star Wars characters. (What was life like for Han and Chewie before A New Hope?)

I have a tendency to drift Star Wars towards vanilla narrativism over time, though - once the characters are developed and we've had our fill of the source material, the players answer the moral questions Star Wars asks in their own way. e.g. Is forgiveness a virtue? Answer: No, sometimes revenge is the moral response. This requires a tweak to the Character Point/Force Point/Dark Side Point rules, though.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nentir Vale/PoL/Nerath should have been its own default setting for 4e; fully developed and supported. I think it was endemic of the larger 4e "problem"; I'm sure I'd have enjoyed 4e a lot more on its own if it didn't keep trying to be D&D in my mind. To that end, I'd probably have accepted it better if everytime I saw a nostalgic name placed on some new concept, my brain didn't scream "THAT'S. NOT. FIREBALL!"

I have complaints about 4e that don't stem from comparison to earlier D&D (early math and grindspace being big ones) but I'm sure I'd have gotten over them by the time Essentials-era math fixed them. However, anytime my brain connects a concept from 4e to what it was previously, my mere dislike boils over into nerdrage. As a game, I can appreciate much of what 4e did. As D&D however, I found it inexcusable.

YMMV and all that.

As far as Nentir Vale and the issue of a '4e default setting' go, I think they were very old-school in their motivations. Like I've said before, from my perspective, prebuilt settings are at least sort of suspect. While 1e was certainly written by Gygax and he had thus the privilege of building his setting's quirks into the rules to some extent none of us expected to use WoG as our setting. It wasn't even published until 5 years after 1e started to come out and maybe artifacts and spell names aside 1e offers no setting hooks by default.

Likewise 4e eschews presenting some pre-digested setting, a rather old-school decision. I think they actually failed to carry it far enough, NV and its cosmology are too well integrated into the system, though I feel in a way that is superficial enough that it isn't a big issue. Because NV was built along with the system it doesn't shape the whole thing too much either. Building 4e around FR or around some new setting might have been popular, I don't know, but it would have left the game in some sense less 'mine'.

I just don't grasp the nerdrage part about mechanics. I mean I have some nostalgia about old 1e and earlier D&D, sure. OTOH I don't need to go on playing that version forever. Its just game mechanics. The essence of the game is hard to nail down, but its some combination of things, and 1e/2e/3e/4e all share in those things. They aren't the SAME D&D, but its not absurd to call them all D&D, and the same players that used to come to my 1e games in the old days come to my 4e games now. SOMETHING about it is working as 'D&D', whatever that means. Honestly, I'm not sure I could get the same people to play a 4e that wasn't called D&D. I think they play because it is the IDEA of D&D that they're into, not the details of if Fireball is 1d6/level 20'r 1" range/lvl save vs spell for half damage or daily arcane area burst 2 at range 10 INT vs FORT 3d6 fire damage/ half on a miss. The end results are pretty darn similar.

 

[Imaro]

There is, however, a point where protagonism runs into predictability.

Pathfinder Sneak Attack works pretty much as you describe (anything with a corporeal body can be SA'd, including plants, undead, and golems). So a group of heroes making their way though a dusty crypt full of ghouls and zombies are fully capable of having their rogue deal SA damage. But the next fight involves a wraith, which by the rules is unsneak-attackable, ignores armor, and resistant to non-force magics. Suddenly, the rogue quivers knowing he's effectively out of the fight. The Fighter is nervous at the fact his platemail armor is practically cloth, the wizard starts debating how to get the most out of his attack spells which do half-damage now (save for 1/4!) and the cleric knows he's doing extra duty blowing channel energy attempts to deal solid damage against the wraith. Oh, did I mention wraith's drain levels yet?

To a certain segment of the playing population, this encounter is unfair. It has robbed the PCs to their stock tools (defender's AC, striker's damage, etc) and turned the fight to one PC with a real chance of harming it (the cleric, though the wizard and fighter can still do things at a greatly reduced effectiveness). I have robbed the group of protagonism by forcing them into an encounter with one-hand tied behind their backs. Yet, I find these are the battles that tell the best stories. The cleric boldly holding off the wraith as the rest flee; the rogue who decided to use his UMD on a scroll of magic missile, the wizard who opted to cast mage armor on the fighter, etc. It saves the game from becoming stale; using well-worn tactics (I'll hold him here, you use your wand of lightning, the rogue sneaks in, cleric heals as needed).

Sure, a whole dungeon full of wraiths seems like a bad idea, but there are times a fight where the PCs are outgunned is good, and I think the idea that all encounters are met with maximum abilities all the time makes things a tad predictable.

Yeah, I kinda agree with this... I also have to wonder how a game design that doesn't have the mechanics for an encounter like this is better (or maybe I'm going for more inclusive or broader apppeal) than a design that has mechanics for encounters like these but doesn't force you to use them (as in those particular creatures) if you desire this type of PC protagonism? I mean I'd rather have the tools available in case I did want to run encounters where the PC's abilities weren't at 100% all the time than to lack those tools altogether and be forced towards running all encounters that way.