D&D 5E Merwin said it better than Schwalb

[Jester David]

Is this based on experience, or inference from the testimony of others?

I don't know if you've ever read the play reports for the original Giants or Tomb of Horrors tournaments. To my mind, they don't suggest that the game had "more story and imagination elements" - at least not for any very meaningful sense of "story" or "imagination".

It's from looking at my own games and published modules. There's a LOT more cases of rooms being barren because the encounter can carry the interest rather than the encounter being "meh" so everything else has to be unique and interesting. Modules that if you converted things to an earlier edition would be boring as dirt.

I'd hardly call tournament modules the standard or benchmark of imagination. They're fun for a side game but if played as written they're lacking. It has all the story of Dungeon Delves. They need a lot more life and character to serve as a good campaign.
And while I'm sure those sessions were fun to play it reads terrible. It was like chewing tinfoil. I couldn't get through both. Opposed to fun D&D stories that are actual stories.

Frankly this sounds like badly designed rules - for instance, PC build rules that put no limits on the degree of action-resolution oomph a given player can bring to bear in a single "move". D&D's traditional device for limiting this in combat is hit points - and its interesting to see how important hit points, rather than save-or-suck, are in the Giants report. That is a module and an episode of play that draws on D&D's strengths.

It sounds like you *really* like tactical play and that kind of game much more than story.
That's fine, the last two editions had that in spades. Tactical play is cool. But it's really, really easy to use that as a crutch, to rely just on the combat encounters or the monsters to make things interesting and memorable.

Yet a system that doesn't permit this - 4e, which does not require the GM's ideas to adhere to or be generated by application of PC-build or action resolution rules - is widely decried for this very feature. And the most popular current FRPG - Pathfinder - seems to be based around the idea that the GM's ideas are subordinate to the PC-build and action resolution rules, even when the GM is not building a PC nor resolving a player's action declaration for his/her PC.

I tend to lump 4e and the 3e flavors equally in "rules chunky, DMing harder" category.
While 3e players are pretty confident in what they can do there are enough exceptions that they don't always assume their actions are a given, but experienced players who know the rules are good at not only knowing what they can do but all the monsters. 4e players tend to just go in throwing down power cards and assuming things work. "I move here, shift here, and attack. I rolled a 15 so I hit and deal X damage."
A DM in both systems will spend a lot of time asking their players "how does that work?" rather than the reverse. In a lot of ways, during the most recent editions, there was very little difference between being a DM running monsters and a player engaging in PvP. You stop being a DM and just become another player rolling dice, only competitive not cooperative.

Imagination is optional, not required.

This seems unobjectionable. But if you're talking about your own experience, why is your post framed so much in the second- and third-person, as if diagnosing the problems that others are suffering from? This was a feature of the blog posts referenced in the OP too.

Because that's my writing style, and I don't feel the need to use "I think" or "in my opinion" as a shield against criticism (which will be ignored anyway).

 

[TwoSix]

While 3e players are pretty confident in what they can do there are enough exceptions that they don't always assume their actions are a given, but experienced players who know the rules are good at not only knowing what they can do but all the monsters. 4e players tend to just go in throwing down power cards and assuming things work. "I move here, shift here, and attack. I rolled a 15 so I hit and deal X damage."
A DM in both systems will spend a lot of time asking their players "how does that work?" rather than the reverse. In a lot of ways, during the most recent editions, there was very little difference between being a DM running monsters and a player engaging in PvP. You stop being a DM and just become another player rolling dice, only competitive not cooperative.

Pretty much everything in this paragraph is a feature for me, not a bug. I LIKE not having to know how every ability works. I like having engaged, knowledgeable players who don't feel the need to ask me if everything works. And I REALLY like building an encounter, trusting in the monster math that there won't be some unintentional insta-kill, and then getting to let loose and really try to win the encounter.

 

[The Black Ranger]

As a cooperative thing, that's just not strictly true. The player should have a great deal of freedom, but the player may need to make the occasional compromise for the good of the group.



I know this isn't about far-our concepts. My statement still holds, in lots of aspects - there can be an agreement on anything from general character concept, to power level, or alignment, or just about anything. If there's an agreement between GM and player on what's coming to the table, and the player brings something else, there's a problem.

Now, I expect that many GMs fail to properly have the discussion about expectations. But if they do have it, then the player shouldn't be bringing things that don't fit that discussion.

A DM asking for certain concepts is no problem at all, DM's that require you to pick X feat or Y ability is where I have a problem, and I'm not talking about restrictions either.

 

[The Black Ranger]

Instead of movies, which are a brief and flighty exercise in time, it seems to me that people treat their roleplaying games much more like their political parties - where only one can "win", and that one might eat up game time for months or years to come until it can be toppled by a rival.

And even the most minor and insignificant of differences are magnified or exaggerated, or even turned to outright vitriol.

Shame, really.

I can tell you we don't run our games like a movie. Imagine a movie where Bruce Willis could die, or a book where Drizzt could make the wrong decision and die. Movies and books have everything planned out and nothing, not even the tiniest bit, will ever change. D&D is not like this because it involves chance and decision making.

 

[Jester David]

Pretty much everything in this paragraph is a feature for me, not a bug. I LIKE not having to know how every ability works. I like having engaged, knowledgeable players who don't feel the need to ask me if everything works. And I REALLY like building an encounter, trusting in the monster math that there won't be some unintentional insta-kill, and then getting to let loose and really try to win the encounter.

I tend not to build encounters or even think of encounters. I think in terms of narrative, which might end in a fight in numerous locations, wherever the PCs are when they discover the villain. They might hunt a monster back to its lair or set a trap, or just encounter it on the road.

I like to know what my PCs powers are because that will determine the story I write and what I plan. If there's a tracker in the group I can know that I should be prepared for tracks. And as I narrate fights descriptively, I need to know what powers do.

 

[Greg K]

but experienced players who know the rules are good at not only knowing what they can do but all the monsters).

Really? In pre-3e, I saw many players that memorized many of monsters in the monster manuals (especially, in basic and 1e). In 3e, I saw a lot less, because players never knew if a creature had classes, levels, and/or templates applied. As for players knowing what their characters can do, this applied to pre 3e as well as DMs usually had characters roll % (for thief and 2e ranger percent rated abilities) or under an ability score/proficiency score.

 

[Greg K]

I tend not to build encounters or even think of encounters. I think in terms of narrative, which might end in a fight in numerous locations, wherever the PCs are when they discover the villain. They might hunt a monster back to its lair or set a trap, or just encounter it on the road.

Can you elaborate? I run encounters the same way in 3e that I did in pre-3e which is to say that I don't plan them any more than I did in earlier editions. I have a general map of an area and location(s)/lairs with notes/stats of key people and creatures. For certain buildings (e.g., castles and inns), I will make some random notes regarding key people and which room is theirs and quickly stat them up.

I like to know what my PCs powers are because that will determine the story I write and what I plan. If there's a tracker in the group I can know that I should be prepared for tracks. And as I narrate fights descriptively, I need to know what powers do.

All I need is pretty much the same things that I needed in pre-3e. BAB, AC, Hit Points, saving throws, a relative idea of their skills (for 1e/2e proficiencies), and spells (which I never memorized in pre-3e anyway).

 

[Umbran]

So, yeah, unless there is a point to talk about, I'm ok with moving on.

I had thought there was a point. I have been responding to something pretty specific:

"But the "math works" 4E approach also divorces the story distinctions from the mechanical nuance. You can define any narrative you can imagine, but at the table the resolution is going to be within that same math works zone."

The point to talk about was that this happens with any system. If your resolution is system based, it resolves as the system says, no matter your chosen narrative. You use 1e system, it resolves like 1e. Use 4e system, it resolves like 4e. Use Shadowrun, it resolves like Shadowrun.

I don't see where you got to various factions treating each other badly from that. Kinda stumped, to be honest.

 

[Hussar]

Incorrect.

There is no such thing as level of effectiveness in D&D. You show me text from any, and I mean "any" book that says you must create an effective character. Now the DM can fiat his home brew however he see's fit, just like he can rule that only a fighter can choose greatsword.

This isn't about DM's fiat at all. But, again, I see this approach easily as disruptive as power monkey rules abusers. After all, I can always win as the DM. I don't care how powerful your character is, I can kill any character as the DM. I can do all sorts of bad things to a PC as a DM. So, getting around the power gamer isn't all that difficult. Particularly if you can point to chapter and verse where the rules abusive player is abusing the rules.

OTOH, you get players like what you are talking about, who refuse to actually engage the mechanics and then become this great big albatross around the neck of the party. As was said above, the other players can most certainly eject your PC if they choose to. If four people at the table turn to you and tell you that your character isn't tall enough to play, that's not their mistake.

 

[Umbran]

A DM asking for certain concepts is no problem at all, DM's that require you to pick X feat or Y ability is where I have a problem, and I'm not talking about restrictions either.

I'm not talking about them requiring particular feats*. In this context, more like asking folks to have some basic competence in combat, or not super-optimize, would be examples.



*Though, I played such a game, too - Star Wars Saga Edition, in which the GM stipulated that all PCs have Force Sensitivity. The requirement didn't kill us.