Pemerton, for the sake of time, I'm going to make a valiant attempt to condense this to a few key points....we'll see if this works!
I mean having more considerations relevant to action resolution than simply the roll of a die.
...snip...
The notion that a D&Dnext GM will allow the battle captain archetype simply by requiring (say) a CHA check against a certain DC I find bizarre: "Make a DC 17 CHA check as you attack, and if you succeed all your friends can attack too, for free." Wouldn't that break the game, and make something of a mockery of the Haste spell? But if this sort of ability isn't allowed, then we have no battle captain. The problem is the lack of other rationing schemes for this sort of messing with the action economy.
Again, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be specific resources for players to draw upon - whether feats or powers or skills - but that all possible resolutions should not always, inherently, or by default be funneled into a "pick-your-power-paradigm," which is what 4e is. This works for some, but not others. Some prefer very simple action resolution: Describe action, DM assigns DC, player rolls d20 + relevant modifier. Voila.
I think the best of both worlds is to have, well,
both. This is what is so intriguing about the
idea of 5e, is having a simple core system with different avenues of further complexity through modules.
To give a specific example, in my 4e game I had one player, who played a rogue, who made strong use of the tactical nature of combat and knew how to optimize his powers for each encounter. Then I had another player, who played a fighter, who just couldn't do the same and found himself struggling with powers. I came to the conclusion that 4e is a good game for tactically-minded players who like complex combat, but not so much for those that don't care as much about such things. The problem is that the rules strongly benefit those who care to master them. This is the case with all editions, but is particularly so with 3e and 4e. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be to some degree, but in 4e the gap was just too large, too noticeable in each session.
As you describe it, your fate pool seems to grant a bonus to dice rolls made for certain sorts of actions, and is rationed in some way. (Presumably the fate pool recharges at some rate, either per session or per heroic victory or something similar.) I don't see any resemblance between that sort of mechanic and Marvel Heroic RPs rules for affecting multiple targets, which depend entirely on the fact that resolution in MHRP is not based on a simple die roll, but on relatively complex dice pool manipulation. (And that certain characters have abilities - rules, not rulings - that permit their players to change the composition of their dice pools in ways that open up certain opportunities but also increase certain risks.)
OK, so what you're saying here is that you prefer "relatively complex dice pool manipulation" over "simple die rolls." Cool. Can you see how that's not the case for many D&D players? Furthermore, can you see how its easier to "dial up" in complexity than "dial down?" The point with 5e is to start simple, then dial up if desired. 4e starts rather complex, making it difficult to dial down, even if page 42 exists.
What I am asking for has nothing in particular to do with very clear, very defined rules. It is to do with the scope of particular mechanics.
Yes, I hear that. You want the mechanics to be adequate to the job. I appreciate that. But understand that "adequacy" is relative to those involved.
Allowing a player to make two attack rolls rather than one....Every edition of D&D since AD&D has treated this as a matter to be addressed in a careful fashion...
If you allow this sort of change to the action economy to be introduced simply via a penalty to a die roll ...you are inviting the game to break....What you call "the tricky part" is, from my point of view, the only part, and in a system where the only dimension of resolution in play is bonuses and penalties to dice rolls then there is no solution.
Again, I hear this and I'm all for having rules as optional modules for this level of granularity. But think of the old "complexity dial" that Mearls was talking about early on in 5e. What I hear you asking is that the complexity dial starts at "medium plus"; this works fine for folks who want a medium plus or more complex game. But what about those folks who just want to charge into combat and attack? In 4e they get screwed, in a similar way that in 3e players who don't read Char-Op threads get screwed because rules mastery is an important part of both editions. Or what about those who don't want to use pre-determined powers but improvise their actions, not in primary reference to the rules of the game but to the narrative of the action?
How does a 4e DM handle that in a way that's any different than other editions? Page 42 ends up being pale in comparison to the powers because its impossible (in terms of what you view as adequate) to provide ad hoc guidelines, or rulings, on improvised actions that are commensurate with the frills of powers.
It also may be that certain game groups don't want to even worry about "gonzo" powers like free attacks and some of the other effects of powers that make more sense within the context of the rules, and less sense in the theater of mind (a lot of 4e powers have to be really stretched to make sense in theater of mind without turning the game into a Hong Kong action movie). That is, again, a level of tactical complexity that is already "dialed up" to a medium plus level.
To say that the option is switched on or off at the will of the GM - which some parts of your post seem to imply - is simply to add GM control over outcomes to broken mechanics, which - for me at least - is the worst of the 2nd ed AD&D experience. Why bother to have mechanics at all, as opposed to free narration of outcomes negotiated between players and GM?
Why must it be black or white, either everything is covered by the rules or the GM just tells a story? There are so many possibilities in-between; if anything, I'm advocating for a wide range of approaches - while you are painting me as advocating a heavily narrative-focused approach (which it is, but only relative to your approach!).
Yes, there are rules that guide play, but the DM's rulings are what actually happens, at least as I see it.
I'm not really seeing how it's not. If options that significantly change the players' mechanical effectiveness are to be toggled on or off at the will of the GM rather than by reference to "objective" conditions - either metagame conditions or PC fictional positioning - then I don't see how it's not a railroad.
A good GM, in my mind, won't arbitrarily "toggle" on or off. In most cases, the actual rules will adequately resolve situations. But I think the key difference is that I see GM interpretation and adjudication as a larger part of game play than you do, and that the GM reserves the right to supersede a rule with a ruling.
It's something of a tangent, but what you describe here is not a very apt summary of Ron Edwards's analysis of RPGing agendas.
I'm not surprised, because it wasn't meant to be an "apt summary" or comprehensive in any way, but merely to sketch some relevant qualities of the tonal differences between various editions. Of course I could be using GNS theory incorrectly, but that's not the point. Let me step away from those terms to re-phrase what I was trying to get at.
I see 4e as being a game in which the activity of game play itself is more primary than the story or setting, because of two reasons: One, it is built around the encounter, which is a challenge to be overcome. Two, and perhaps more importantly, the verisimilitude of the rules seems to be internal - that is, within the rules themselves - rather than relative to the story or setting/context. Couple these with a reliance upon the battlemat and you have game play experience that is more externalized, more "in the game" than "in the campaign world." This goes back to my early point about reduction in theater of mind.
I think the difference can be seen in the other extracts from your post that I quote here. What I described - mechanics to support the game by giving solid guidelines on mechanical difficulty and mechanical effect that, when followed, will deliver satisfying play - differs from what we had for 34 years prior, as soon as "satisfactory play" is allowed to range over preferences other than Gygaxian play in dungeon environments. You seem to concede this when you talk about "fudging" die rolls to improve the drama of a situation - this is a flat-out acknowledgement that the mechanics, when followed, don't deliver satisfying play. If they did, the fudging in the interest of drama would be unnecessary, because followig the mechanics would in and of itself produce drama!
I disagree here. In some ways what you're saying reminds me of the problem some folks have with defined skills. Take Diplomacy, for instance. In your logic, not having a Diplomacy skill for a social interaction in the game world would be insufficient mechanically; for me its an opportunity for role-play.
Again, I just don't think every thing a PC does requires complex, robust, or specific mechanical guidelines. The lack of rules outside of dungeon environments went too far, in my view, in that it created a rule for every possible situation and de-emphasized rulings.
My personal experience is that reducing mechanical robustness (which needn't equate to mechanical "weight" - MHRP is mechanically robust, but it's rules can fit onto a single A4 page) does not increase imaginative play. If the players don't have a good sense of what their PCs can accomplish in the gameworld, and also have a sense that the GM is running a Gygaxian-style game or an even higher degree of adversarial GMing, then in my experience "rulings not rulse" tends to foster player turtling. If the players don't have a good sense of what their PCs can accomplish in the gameworld, but know that the GM has a clear conception of "the story", then rather than turtling the result in my experience tends to be a type of solipsistic play: the players leave all the "big picture" stuff to the GM, and focus on a type of self-cultivation of their PCs, both in "roleplaying" terms (what sort of hat does my guy wear, what is the name of his fencing style, etc) and in manoevre terms (various sorts of improvised flourishes and actions, like the two-arrow short agaist the orc, which express the personality of the character). But because the GM is ultimately determining how things unfold, these manoeuvres, even if resolved in mechanical terms, ultimately have little bearing on the unfolding of the game.
I find it odd that you associate Gygaxian gaming (whatever that is, I assume you mean DM's power as absolute) with adversarial GMing. I don't see this as the case at all, or at least it isn't inherent to it. If anything, I find the approach of rules superseding GM rulings to be more adversarial because it encourages a GM vs. players field.
Furthermore, I think you continually make what I see as an erroneous assumption, that the traditional DM approach inherently leads to railroading. This is just false, imo, and is only true in a game that is either intentionally railroading (which some players like), and/or in which the DM is domineering. But those aren't the default modes of traditional D&D.
The second style of play that I have described is the "illusionist" play that I associate with the heyday of AD&D 2nd ed, and which I see hints of in D&Dnext. It is basically the antithesis of what makes RPGing appealling to me as a leisure activity.
My sense is that you like a game of full disclosure, in which all rulings are transparent mainly because there are no rulings, partially because the rules provide satisfactory guidelines. Again, that's totally fine. Viva la difference!
In a way we could say that I don't find the rules of 4e to be satisfactory for the type of game that I want to play, while you find the rules to be satisfactory for the type of game that you want to play. Maybe that's a cop-out, but at least its a civil one!
EDIT: p.s....lol at my attempt to keep it short. Damn.
