D&D 4E The Best Thing from 4E

[The Crimson Binome]

To me that is still metagame - for instance, why is it a human cleric of Pelor rather than a dwarven assassin who is in the right place at the right time? Not because of any working out of internal world-logic, but because a player wanted to play one sort of character rather than another!

That's a good point. It seems like a logical extension of the Anthropic Principle, though; if we want to tell a story about characters X Y Z, then the DM creates a world which conspires for X Y Z to be in the right place at the right time. With an infinite number of worlds that could exist, in every conceivable configuration, it's not a mark against any one world that we happen to be interested in watching it.

I can easily imagine this. Think about whether or not your PC has socks, or a handkerchief, or a lock of hair from his/her childhood sweetheart. I think in most games I've played PC equipment lists have not been specified to such a level of detail.

For my current game? Yes, no, no - yes because it's part of the "cold weather clothing", and no because they're not explicitly written down on my character sheet. I also have four belt pouches, two sacks, four days of trail rations, and 50 feet of silk rope. And as inconvenient as it might sometimes be, to write all of that down, it seems preferable to the alternative of just making it up on the spot. If I don't have that rope written down, accounting for its weight and everything, then I won't think of using it because it's not part of my mental image of the scene.

For similar reasons, I can't play Feng Shui and drop a chandelier that wasn't explicitly mentioned to be there, because my mind is resistant to making up meaningful facts - especially if they would favor me - without evidence for them.

4e bites the bullet on (ii), by making the metagame overt: the player has to negotiate with the GM for the feasibility of what is being attempted before any check can be declared or resolved. But it thereby avoids the covert blocking issue: once a check is declared, there is a structure to establish DCs, to determine how close the situation comes to resolution (N successes before 3 failures), etc.

So you give up on the DM playing fairly, assume that the DM will be adversarial (or covertly blocking), and work up a meta-game method of bypassing that? It seems like a case of going to far in pursuit of mitigating the effects of bad DMing.

It really seems like the best course of action is to just train the DM to not do that. If the DM can safely be assumed to never be blocking, and can be trusted to be a neutral arbiter, then you avoid the necessity of resorting to the meta-game. I know that the rules, at least as far back as Basic, have always emphasized that the DM should be fair.

Then again, perhaps I am merely oblivious to the less-pleasant aspects of human nature.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Again, I haven't found a setting which I find to be even remotely logical. Sure, there are often a bunch of things that are explained in terms of some logic. Its debatable whether said logic WORKS or not, and in a sea of illogicality a few isolated logical elements don't really count for much since their entire context doesn't make sense and is contrived as I stated earlier.

That's kind of sad, really. I think most settings mostly make sense, if you give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic on that point.

Honestly the greatest triumph of 4e FUNDAMENTALLY was realizing and explicitly being designed around the fact that the rules are there to facilitate a fun game of D&D and have no other purpose nor serve any other master. In 4e strategic teleport works a certain way BECAUSE IT MAKES A BETTER GAME.

It might make for a tactical game that's more interesting, but it's one of the big sticking points on trying to write a logical world setting (the problem of trying to imprison an Eladrin, with the solution that it's just impossible so you'd better kill them all instead of even trying). I guess that's probably why you chose that example, though.

Maybe it's because I'm optimistic, and like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, that I find it hard to accept when they explicitly work against those ideals. Like you said, they fundamentally don't care if it makes sense for building a consistent or sustainable world, aside from its direct impact on the PCs. That's just not cool by me. I'm fine with the occasional plot hole, because everyone makes mistakes, but I'm not fine with the designers not caring if they introduce plot holes; that just seems really disrespectful of them.

 

[pemerton]

It's not a meta-game consideration, though, because it's not cross-contamination between in-game and out-of-game. Who we are watching is an event entirely external to the game.

By this criteria, I don't think anything is metagame.

After all, the GM's opinion that giants are more interesting than orcs is external to the gameworld. In the fiction, the giants have their own reason for being there, and there is equally a reason that orcs aren't there, and none of those reasons involves the GM's opinion.

If I don't have that rope written down, accounting for its weight and everything, then I won't think of using it because it's not part of my mental image of the scene.

In my view, this tends to lead to very Spartan gameworlds. I am typing this sitting at a desk. To catalogue everything that is on my desk would probably take the better part of a day. Even to catalogue everything that's in my wallet might take the better part of an hour! - besides money there are business cards, scraps of paper with addresses and phone numbers, banking cards, etc.

It's true that mediaeval people have less stuff than most contemporary Australian people, but it's still pretty exacting. I've never seen a character sheet that specifies a PC's underwear, for instance, nor how many hooks or buttons or ties (choose your technology) are on a shirt.

So you give up on the DM playing fairly

<snip>

It really seems like the best course of action is to just train the DM to not do that.

<snip>

I know that the rules, at least as far back as Basic, have always emphasized that the DM should be fair.

My point is that "fairness", or neutrality, doesn't really take us very far.

A PC is in prison. Does a friendly NPC turn up to help save him/her, or not? Basic D&D doesn't have any mechanic for answering this question, unless the prison is in a dungeon and the GM applies the random encounter rules - which is already stretching them somewhat beyond their stated purpose.

If the prison is in a citadel, what then? Gygax's city encounter chart in the DMG won't help - it simply doesn't have that sort of information on it.

In some systems (eg Burning Wheel, HeroWars/Quest) the burden for this sort of stuff is taken off the GM because the player-side rules include making rolls to have NPC friends and allies turn up and lend a hand. OGL Conan also gives this sort of thing as something that might be done by spending a fate point.

In systems which have no player-side resource to handle this sort of thing, then how is it decided? The GM has to make a call. But I don't see how focusing on fairness or neutrality is going to help the GM with that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Australian?


AUSTRALIAN?

 

[pemerton]

the problem of trying to imprison an Eladrin, with the solution that it's just impossible so you'd better kill them all instead of even trying

I don't understand what the problem is - keep them in a dark room, put bags on their heads, hold them in rooms with no openings - it's not as if any of this is very challenging, and much of it is a fairly typical feature of human techniques of imprisonment.

I think most settings mostly make sense, if you give them the benefit of the doubt.

<snip>

I'm fine with the occasional plot hole, because everyone makes mistakes, but I'm not fine with the designers not caring if they introduce plot holes; that just seems really disrespectful of them.

I'm not sure what you mean by "plot hole", especially given that you are not an advocate of plot.

When [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] says that most fantasy worlds are not logical or consistent, I don't think that he is talking about overt contradictions in the surface descriptions. Avoiding those is fairly easy, and 4e has only one that I can think of (confusion over Asmodeus's backstory).

He is talking about whether or not the surface description describes a world that is actually feasible, from the point of view of history, sociology, economics, technological development, etc.

The classic example of this in traditional D&D is dungeon and wilderness ecology - what do all those dragons eat?

The standard 3E example is demographics and economy.

In Tolkien, the economy of the Shire is a mystery to me. They live surrounded by wolf and goblin-infested wilderness, and seem to have no mines of their own, so where do they get all their metal from? Likewise the elves of Lorien, or the dwarves of Erebor - what do they eat?

I'm not sure what fantasy worlds you have in mind as "mostly making sense", but none of the D&D ones I'm familiar with (the B/X "Known World", FR, Greyhawk, Kara Tur) fit this description. Greyhawk and Kara Tur come closest, because they are basically bits and pieces of real-world history and geography with the number plates changed, but even then the role of routinized magic is not adequately accounted for, and there is still the puzzling biology and ecology of monsters.

I think AbdulAlhazred's point, which I agree with, is that treating fantasy worlds as coherent models of possible human realities is hopeless from the start. Better to do what authors like Tolkien, Ursula LeGuin, REH, etc do and recognise that they are backdrops for fictional events - that the proper frameworks for thinking about them, from the point of view of design, are literary and authorial rather than scientific and causal.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

By this criteria, I don't think anything is metagame.

After all, the GM's opinion that giants are more interesting than orcs is external to the gameworld. In the fiction, the giants have their own reason for being there, and there is equally a reason that orcs aren't there, and none of those reasons involves the GM's opinion.

Sounds good to me! If the DM decides to create a world with giants rather than orcs, and there's an in-game reason for there to be giants rather than orcs, then that's not meta-game.

A meta-game decision would be if the DM hadn't decided whether there were giants or orcs in a particular region, but made the decision based on what level the party was when they got there.

My point is that "fairness", or neutrality, doesn't really take us very far.

A PC is in prison. Does a friendly NPC turn up to help save him/her, or not? Basic D&D doesn't have any mechanic for answering this question, unless the prison is in a dungeon and the GM applies the random encounter rules - which is already stretching them somewhat beyond their stated purpose.

That seems more like an RP thing, and you don't need random tables in order to RP. One of the jobs of the DM is to play NPCs, tracking their activities and motivations (individually, for important ones, and collectively for the masses).

A friendly NPC turns up if an appropriate one exists and has a reason to do so. Is there a particular member of the nobility who is in need of your services? Are you a hero of the people, such that they might band together to help you in your time of need (by hiring a mercenary, I suppose, in this case)? These are things that the DM should already know. It shouldn't even require much consideration, because most of the time it should be obvious (to the DM).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm not sure what you mean by "plot hole", especially given that you are not an advocate of plot.

It's something that would be a plot hole, if you noticed it in a story. I don't know what the right term would be, in terms of setting design.

Things like the economy of the Shire would be a plot hole, if it seemed to you like there's no way it could make sense. It doesn't seem like a plot hole to me, because it's easy for me to believe in a self-sustaining agricultural society with sufficient trade for it all to work out. I don't need to know the details, because there's nothing that draws attention to it as obviously impossible (or even particularly improbable).

Dungeon ecology can easily end up as a plot hole. The DM can make an effort to prevent that possibility, though. As a player, I probably won't enjoy the game as much if the DM doesn't at least try to minimize the plot holes.

 

[pemerton]

Sounds good to me! If the DM decides to create a world with giants rather than orcs, and there's an in-game reason for there to be giants rather than orcs, then that's not meta-game.

A meta-game decision would be if the DM hadn't decided whether there were giants or orcs in a particular region, but made the decision based on what level the party was when they got there.

The most contentious case is one that you haven't covered: the GM hasn't decided whether there are giants or orcs in a particular region, makes the decision based on the level of the party, and also decides on an ingame reason for the giants to be there (or decides that there is such a reason, although may not yet have decided what it is).

The GM's authorial motivation is not part of the gameworld - it is an external thing. The reason, within the gameworld, for the giants to be there is whatever it happens to be.

By your criterion stated upthread, it seems that this is not metagame.

That seems more like an RP thing, and you don't need random tables in order to RP. One of the jobs of the DM is to play NPCs, tracking their activities and motivations (individually, for important ones, and collectively for the masses).

A friendly NPC turns up if an appropriate one exists and has a reason to do so. Is there a particular member of the nobility who is in need of your services? Are you a hero of the people, such that they might band together to help you in your time of need (by hiring a mercenary, I suppose, in this case)? These are things that the DM should already know. It shouldn't even require much consideration, because most of the time it should be obvious (to the DM).

In the Conan novel Hour of the Dragon, Zenobia helps Conan to escape because she saw him in the street once and fell in love with him. How does the GM decide if an NPC has become smitten with a PC and decides to come forward in the PC's hour of need?

I find the idea that these things should be obvious to the GM - as if they are fully determined by the prior state of the gameworld - very hard to swallow. In the real world, if I ask a friend for a favour I can't always predict how they will answer. In an imaginary world - particularly one in which the stakes are typically much higher than in the real world, given it is a world of fantasy adventure - I find the sort of predictability you describe even more elusive.

 

[pemerton]

Things like the economy of the Shire would be a plot hole, if it seemed to you like there's no way it could make sense. It doesn't seem like a plot hole to me, because it's easy for me to believe in a self-sustaining agricultural society with sufficient trade for it all to work out. I don't need to know the details, because there's nothing that draws attention to it as obviously impossible (or even particularly improbable).

Sufficient trade with whom? The orcs of Angmar? And by whom? Virtually no one in The Shire has travelled beyond its borders!

I'm also interested in your notion of "nothing drawing attention to it as obviously impossible" - the first thing you need to learn as an illusionist is not to draw attention to certain things! That doesn't mean they're not there.

 

[S'mon]

This describes my 4e game too. I've used underground locations - drow, duergar, a small maze with gelatinous cubes - but not the classic style that [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] described.

There was one location that was like an extended dungeon, but it still had a pretty tight theme (minotaur burial catacombs).

Many, possibly most, of my 4e adventures still take place in 'dungeons', but either they are small like the three-room dungeons in Dungeon Delve, or they are abstracted (the way Wyatt teaches us in 4e DMG - 'long treks through ruined dwarven fortresses aren't Fun') - so eg my group have just been trekking through miles of Underdark passages by means of Dungeoneering checks until they reach Encounter areas where the flipmat comes out. It's very different from the three-pillar play in eg my new 5e game, or my Pathfinder game, where extensive dungeon complexes are explored
step-by-step (which so far seems to work rather better in 5e than in 3e/PF, AFAICS).

A Paizo dungeon flipmat used for my Pathfinder (etc) games would typically have 6-12 encounters in a 4-5 hour play session. In my 4e campaign that same flipmat would likely be the scene of a single 2-3 hour battle.