D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

[Neonchameleon]

This type of thing is basically why I am wary of DM-sets-the-characters-up-to-be-awesome play, it seems very boom or bust and stressful to DM: http://critical-hits.com/2013/02/05/worst-session-ever-part-1/

If a player asked me if we can kill off their character tonight I would say "I don't care if you kill off your character, why are you asking me?" and this whole fiasco would have been avoided

I assumed reading that that Dire Flailings was a self-mocking tag, not the name of a column. Because honestly, my reaction to reading that was to want to take away Vanir's D&D books and instead give him a copy of Smallville. System matters - and in Smallville a lack of DM confidence isn't such a great issue. The DM's role is to create an enemy of the week based on the character's relationships and values that will cause them to fight like cats in a sack before they eventually work out how to work together and how far they can trust each other (as it normally beats the alternative). I think that and the oversized relationship map would suit Vanir far better than D&D would - and it would bring the awesome in the group out. (If I was feeling sadistic I'd offer him Monsterhearts instead and think that would do pretty well as well).

System matters. And there are systems to do what Vanir wants and have a compelling game. D&D is not a good example of one of them.

 

[Storminator]

True, but I'm not sure you should run a campaign on the basis of everything JUST feeding into the next scene. I don't know what @pemerton has to say about it, but to me STRATEGIC consequences are more interesting than tactical ones, but both have their place and I think players understand and play the resource game, so they're not exactly disconnected from resource loss. OTOH it is an abstract consequence, so it may not always be visceral enough. You could add in something, like a disability of some kind on top of it in some situations. The Despair Deck for instance could be used that way, or you could just do as suggested above and have a penalty. You could use the disease track too.

Well, Nemesis Destiny's house rules made my suggestion moot, since surges are much more important in his game, but I get your point.

This is one of my favorite threads, because it turns out I've been running my game as PSF. There are a couple things I've grown to hate over the years of RPGing, and some of them are 1) fiddly resource management and 2) "so what do we do next?" So I gloss over a lot of management questions, like how many arrows do you have, or did you buy rations, or even how much time as passed. I also avoid clueless players like the plague. I just tell the players a ton of information. I remind them of old information. They always find clues. Tie all that together, and I just throw them into the next scene, usually based on what they did in the last scene.

To get the strategic consequences, we don't always have scene A chain to scene B chain to scene C. Sometimes consequences don't come up for many scenes, and sometimes a bunch of scenes all come together as all the *bleep* hits the fan at once.

Tying that all back to the healing surge penalties, because of the way I jump to the next scene, healing surges rarely run out. The difference between ending a fight with 5 surges and 2 surges makes little difference, assuming the PCs have control over when Extended Rests happen (I have done sessions where Extended Rests don't happen until we reach an "end point" but seems more like one big, long scene rather than 3 or 4 chained ones. There, counting surges was very important.). Obviously, if you're tied a little tighter to resource management, my experience can't be extrapolated. I could definitely use the disease track, or some other overt mechanical penalty. I like pemerton's stakes raising idea, and I'm thinking of it like this: If you succeed in the skill challenge you come in at the beginning of my scene frame. The hostage is somewhere in the demon city and the ritual is about to start. If you really nail the skill challenge, you come into the scene a little earlier - the secret door hasn't closed yet. If you fail the SC, you come in late - the ritual is underway and the hostage is taking damage. It's the same movie, but the entrance scene shifts depending on the SC.

PS

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm still having trouble understanding what @Bedrockgames absolute immersionist play is. Do you guys literally sit at a table talking only in 1st person for 3-4 hours solid without ever breaking character? How can combat in any edition of D&D work that way? Surely you have to explain to the DM in 3rd person what your character is doing, roll dice, etc. I guess what I'm saying is we're all playing an RPG. How big actually is the difference between our group where we act out some purely RP scenes roughly in 1st person and use 1st person in-character talk when its interesting to do so otherwise and whatever you're doing? I suspect if we compared our actual play there'd be relatively small differences, if any. I think the question is more about which parts of the game are the cream filling and which are the cookie part.

i suspect the differences are not that noticeable. I am not trying to lay out a gaming ideology here or a grand theory of play (I think those tend to be confine people too much) but simply descirbing what is important to me in play. So immersion is important and in character dialogue and point of view are important. Things that distract me seem to work against that, but I am not playing with a universal prohibition against third person or militantly opposed to things that on paper or argumentation would work against them. I am more worried about whether something actually bothers me in practice at the table than whether it should bother me in theory (I think is an important point and one that leads to a lot of self inflicted wounds among gamers).

That said, what my sessions tend to be is a blend of first and third person because there are times when you have to interface with the game through third person for convenience or mechanical neccesity. But the focus, the cream as you put it, is in character dialogue and world interaction---that is where the game is fun for me. Things like me constructiong scenes as a player, adding setting info, taking on typically GM responsibilities tend to frustrate my experience. Also things like flashbacks bother me as do attempts to have causation flow more from narrative needs than causal ones.

In terms of what it looks like, this means i usually speak in first person ("i go to the market", "I try obtain the higher ground and attack the orc with my sword", etc). It also means speaking in character most of time ("Tell me where you put the duke's secret cupcake recipe!" Instead of "I demand the bandit tell me where he put the duke's secret cupcake recipe).

this does mean sessions tend to be longer around the rp than the combat. I dont normally run D&D, normally I run and play my own games, which have a fast combat system. Cmbats at my table take five to fifteen minutes tops (and they can be much faster than that). But going into town and finding where the duke's secret cupcake recipe can take hours. Not because we stop and chat with every vendor we buy fruit from but because we do play out every interaction related directly to tracking the duke's cupcake recipe.

But like I said, you have to deviate from that once in a while. I mean it would be dull to never elapse time or force the players to always describe everything in first person. It is a tendancy more than anything else. A description of how I tend to play the game, what matters to me in play and what tends to trouble me. But i am always hesitant to make hard and fast rules. As I have said, I play dr who and savage worlds which both have story points (in savage world they are bennies). Those are resources my characters cant sense or handle. There is no way to really use a benny without speaking from out of your character'soint of view (unless you are using code words or something).

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Someday, I want to play in a game where the duke's secret cupcake recipe is a plot point.

 

[TwoSix]

this does mean sessions tend to be longer around the rp than the combat. I dont normally run D&D, normally I run and play my own games, which have a fast combat system. Cmbats at my table take five to fifteen minutes tops (and they can be much faster than that). But going into town and finding where the duke's secret cupcake recipe can take hours. Not because we stop and chat with every vendor we buy fruit from but because we do play out every interaction related directly to tracking the duke's cupcake recipe.

I think this why it's an excellent idea to tie actual play experiences into the theories we discuss here; it gives a better understanding on whether or not using the espoused theory will actually make you happy at the table.

Certainly not a judgment on you or your gaming style, BG, but I don't think I'd last to a third session at your game if most it revolves around talking to NPCs looking for clues.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think this why it's an excellent idea to tie actual play experiences into the theories we discuss here; it gives a better understanding on whether or not using the espoused theory will actually make you happy at the table.

Certainly not a judgment on you or your gaming style, BG, but I don't think I'd last to a third session at your game if most it revolves around talking to NPCs looking for clues.

It certainly isn't for everyone. And how I run the game will depend on the setting of course. When I run modern crime games things are more about the PCs building up their power base and contending with threats.But I really enjoy urban adventures, so a lot of what I run is investigation based or political intrigue based. It isn't all looking for clues and talking, there is an equal amount of PCs plotting and poisoning, making power plays etc. But it tends to be a lot less focus on dungeon crawls or structuring things around encounters.

In my current campaign, which grows out of the development of a new magic heavy fantasy setting where the PCs are sort of like demi-gods, things are a bit different. There is quite a bit more exploration. But even then the follower rules have become important and a large part of the campaign has become focused on the political. So talking to NPCs is still important. They recenlty went on a diplomatic mission to find out why a local city state queen stopped paying tribute to their empire, and inserted themselves into her war with a neighboring state (but definitely not as much clue hunting in this one).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Someday, I want to play in a game where the duke's secret cupcake recipe is a plot point.

Well, that was just a silly example. I have never actually had an adventure pivot around that. An actual investigation example would be the players in my Roman campaign were part of a secret order working for the emperor and went to a Legionary Fort in Germania to investigate the murder of the aquilifer (the standard bearer of the legion's eagle). They found that the standard had been replaced with a replica and his murder was because he detected the forgery. The investigation had them wrapped up in a plot between one of the tribunes and some local germans (who happened to be part of a werewolf cult). So there was also plenty of action here and there (its just the action tended to move fast, no one hour combats or anything like that).

 

[D'karr]

I'm thinking of it like this: If you succeed in the skill challenge you come in at the beginning of my scene frame. The hostage is somewhere in the demon city and the ritual is about to start. If you really nail the skill challenge, you come into the scene a little earlier - the secret door hasn't closed yet. If you fail the SC, you come in late - the ritual is underway and the hostage is taking damage. It's the same movie, but the entrance scene shifts depending on the SC.

PS

Yes, that is exactly a great way to handle it and describe the actual mechanical repercussions.

When the encounter is called "easy" (SC Success), or "hard" (SC Fail). It doesn't mean that the encounters need to be easy, or hard based on XP budget, or for the purpose of EL. The assumption is that if you succeed your will have some sort of advantage, and if you fail you will have some sort of complication. It is up to the DM to frame what that advantage or complication should be. Maybe it's an extra action point that can be used in addition to the regular ones, or a surprise round. Maybe it's more time before the ritual completes. All those would be advantages in the follow-on encounter. Complications might be being surprised, less time before the ritual completes, hazardous entry, etc.

Make the success, or failure matter in a way that makes sense.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Well, that was just a silly example. I have never actually had an adventure pivot around that.

Yeah, I figured, and it was an equally silly response.

That said, I do enjoy light-hearted games like that sometimes, so I was only being semi-facetious when I wrote that. Hence, the smiley.

 

[Storminator]

Someday, I want to play in a game where the duke's secret cupcake recipe is a plot point.

Once we had company in from out of town and did some fairy tale based one shots. One based on Little Red Riding Hood started with Grandmother giving us a shopping list. It was supposed to be a little setting color and motivate us to go to town to start the adventure. After we went to the 3rd shop keeper to haggle for apples the DM told us to drop it and get along with the adventure.

We really thought we were going to use that bag of flour, apples, and jar of sugar for something . . .

PS