I can't think of a single mundane ability I know of, in real life, that can only be done once a day.
Do you mean
no more than once per day? Or exactly once per day?
The latter is a bit trickier, because the real world is often not as uniform as the world of RPGing.
The former, though, would include running X kilometres (where the value of X will vary by runner - in my case, I don't think I could do more than one 20 km run in a day - ie I don't think I would finish a marathon).
Also fast sprints.
My upper body strength is not that great, and so I have only a finite number of pull-ups in me per day, although there are encounter-power aspects to that also, as after the first batch a few minutes rest might let me do another one or two.
If we move to intellectual tasks, I probably don't have more than a couple of clever moves in me per day, and (depending on what your threshold is for
clever) maybe not more than one or two a year! Coming up with clever ideas and arguments is hard, and very hard to do repeatedly. If I finish a paper, I generally cannot turn around the next day and start working full-bore on the next one. I'm tired.
The distinction to me is entirely dependent on whether the ability is supposed to model a mundane ability, such as could be performed within the physical world we all know and inhabit by anyone of sufficient talent or strength; or whether the ability is supposed to be "magic."
In most cases, neither. It is a metagame ability.
For instance, what is an ability that lets a fighter attack two enemies rather than one? It's a breaking of the action economy rules.
What about an ability that gets a bonus to hit, or does damage on a miss, or allows an out-of-turn attack, or does bonus damage dice? These are all rule-breakers too.
In some games these would be handled via fate points: spend a fate point to gain a bonus to hit, or a reroll on a miss, or a bonus to damage, or to make an extra attack outside the normal action economy.
In 4e, they are instead bundled into discrete powers, I think for at least two design reasons: (1) because D&D has always been a game of lists (lists of spells, lists of weapons, lists of magic items, lists of monsters, etc) and so a list of discrete powers fits the D&D aesthetic; (2) discrete powers support thematic build and play, by setting parameters around what a PC can do and producing trends or patterns over time (a bit like being a necromancer rather than an illusionist, for instance), and by preventing purely expedient spamming.
There are other ways to achieve (2) - Marvel Heroic RP does it through superpower descriptors, for instance - but 4e's approach gives you (2) and (1) together.
Anyway, what happens - in the fiction - when a fighter attacks with a multiple-dice daily that allows him/her to strike two targets and do damage even on a miss (say, Dragonfang Strike - 15th level (?) daily)? Answer, the same as what happens in every other round of combat - the fighter is hitting and hitting hard - except the fighter hits harder and quicker in that round, because the player has chosen to spend a metagame resource that lets him/her break the normal action economy. Why is it rationed? Because resources that let you break the action economy
have to be rationed, by definition.
Why have resources that let the player of the fighter break the action economy? Because it can be fun to choose to exert yourself
now, in this way, against this foe, to swing the tide of battle.
5e has this sort of thing for fighters in the Action Surge, but it's closer to a purely generic fate point. I expect it's comparative blandness makes it less irritating to some, but I would also expect to see more complaints about spamming, or that too often there is an optimal course of action that involves starting with an Action Surge, etc.
pemerton argues that narrating a power's resolution is no different than narrating hit point loss, but to me it's a huge difference trying to rationalize how the same basic "2W + move your foe 1 square" power works for a fighter, a rogue, a wizard, an invoker, a cleric, a warlord, a warpriest, a shardmind, a druid, a ranger, a whatever-the-crap-else.......
Can you say a bit more about what the difference is? Or the difficulty?
When I look at a 2W power, what I see is a bonus weapon die. The character has hit harder! It's like the difference between Burning Hands and Fireball - one is more scorching fire.
Why does the character get the bonus weapon die only sometimes? Because you can't hit harder every time! If you could, it wouldn't be hitting harder! Why is it rationed by player choice rather than (say) random die roll? Because it's fun for players to
choose when to hit harder. And - in terms of association - it models your character trying all out.
As for the forced movement, often its in the name of the power, or its descriptors. Two simple examples: the fighter in my 4e game has the at-will power Footwork Lure. It lets him pull in an opponent while falling back himself. What does it model? The answer is in the name: skilled footwork as a warrior. He outmanoeuvres his enemies, with the result that they end up in positions that are disadvantageous to them while advantageous to him.
The second simple example: the invoker/wizard in my game has an encounter power called Tide of the First Storm. It slows enemies and moves allies to safety, or to advantageous positions. How? The answer is in the name: the caster is calling forth the waters of the first storm, which impede the caster's enemies while carrying the caster's allies to some safer, or more advantageous, place.
A more complex example: until very recently, the sorcerer in my game was a Demonskin Adept who had the encounter power Demonsoul Bolts. From its name, and the fact that it is a ranged power that allows multiple attacks, we know that it is an unleashing of magical bolts. From the fact that it does Thunder damage, plus its descriptor ("You unleash a volley of howling, demonic souls torn from the Abyss to batter your foes") we can tell that is is very loud and forceful. That is why it also, on a hit, moves the target 1 square. This character then had a feat called Walk Among the Fey, which allows him to turn forced movement into teleportation. So when someone is hit by his demonsoul bolts, they are teleported, passing momentarily into the Feywild. He also has a feat called Unlucky Teleport, which does 1d10 damage to enemies that he teleports. So now we can see that, when he hits someone with his Demonsoul Bolts they are sent momentarily to a hostile part of the Feywild, and are even more hurt/demoralised upon their return.
I can see that the
subject matter of this reasoning is different from the
subject matter of working out what happens in the fiction when someone takes 12 hp of damage. But it seemed that you were trying to point to a difference that is not just a difference of subject-matter.
I don't have to rationalize how the Bull Rush maneuver / feat works for 75 different classes in 3e.
But you don't have to rationalise any of the examples I just gave - the answer is in the power name, and typically pretty obvious. A footwork lure moves someone by means of deft footwork. A Tide of the First Storm slows someone with waves. Etc.
In this sense, even the 4e powers' naming conventions work against them----by setting every power up as "unique, flavorful" thing that only that class can do, it puts even more onus on the player/GM to make the use of that power in the fiction unique.
This is no different from the D&D tradition of spells. Every spell is unique. Every spell requires the game participants to work out what is happening in the fiction. But normally it's obvious.
martial daily powers simply fail the association test outright. There's no explanation for why a martial power source character using a power once during a day cannot use that power again until tomorrow.
The explanation is one of rationing. The game is boring if a rogue can
never throw a bunch of shurikens and blind his/her enemies. But it is
broken if s/he can do it every turn. So the ability is rationed.
It's like rationing hit dice in 5e, or rationing turning undead in 3E (remember, it was unlimited in AD&D), or rationing the rogues' defensive roll in 3E, etc.
As to why, in the fiction, it works out this way - the
structure of the reasoning is no different from any action economy reasoning. Why can't I make two attacks per round? Because Gygax, and all D&D designer since him, have deemed that I won't get an opportunity to get in a good hit more than once per minute (AD&D) or once per 6 seconds (3E and onwards). Why can't I use Blinding Barrage twice per day? Because the 4e designers deemed that the opportunity to get in that sort of attack won't come up more than once per day.
All action economy is a deeming of the fiction, whether the action economy is for once per round abilities (make an attack), once per encounter abilities (use Tide of the First Storm) or once per day abilities (use Blinding Barrage).
If some players don't notice that once per round abilities involve a deeming of the fiction for metagame reasons (despite the fact that Gygax explicitly spelled this out in his DMG) that's interesting. They must find Dungeon World, which doesn't have an action economy and handles combat the same as D&D non-combat (namely, the GM arbitrates player action declarations based purely on the fictional positioning of the PCs) very strange!
pemerton said:
the die roll happens in the real world, not in the gameworld, and is no more nor less a game device than the rule that says "you can't use this power more than once without a short rest".
One gives the player the illusion of agency. The other strips it away completely and says, "just because I said so."
I'm not sure how much weight you're putting on the word "illusion". Taken literally, if someone has (merely) an illusion of X that implies that the person lacks X - ie X has been "stripped away" completely.
If the complaint about encounter powers is that they remove player agency, that is the exact opposite to my actual experiences of play. I find that encounter powers, being resources that push beyond the default, tend to give players quite a high degree of agency. They get to choose when, and how, to deploy their superior resources.
In the martial context, it models trying harder and pushing oneself to the limit.
When you pile on the ability of the first mechanic to be tried again (and again, and again, and again); there is a completely different "feel" to the two.
As I said, there are a range of rules around retries. For instance, in AD&D a thief PC never gets a retry against a trap, and can retry against a lock only once per level. There are no retries for bend bars/lift gates, nor for trying to open magically held doors. There are no retries for searching for secret doors.
There are retries for climbing, picking pockets and opening normally stuck doors.
Maybe because most of my players cut their teeth on AD&D rather than 3E they are more familiar with RPG mechanics that limit retries in various ways.
I've stated numerous times on these forums that I no longer play D&D of any variety for the same reasons----I found systems where I don't have to deal with D&D's legacy tropes at all, that work better to give me the kind of game I want.
The reason I became involved in this discussion again is because I simply couldn't stand by and watch [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] and [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] dismiss my actual, tangible play experience with 4e
Where have I dismissed your experience of 4e? You don't like it. I know. I participated in a 1000-odd post thread that you started "In defence of the theory of dissociated mechanics". I'm not disputing your experience. I'm disputing the so-called theory, which is a statement of preference dressed up as an analysis of RPG mechanics, without even the barest attempt to discuss (for instance) the relationship between 4e's mechanics and a raft of D&D traditions, from hit points to turn-based action economies to limits on retries to . . . etc etc.
You don't like D&D tropes. I do. That's why I play it. That's why, when I use other mechanical systems (eg Rolemaster, Burning Wheel) I still draw on D&D story tropes. It's because I like D&D's story tropes, and it's because 4e shows what sort of thing can be done with Gygax's non-simulationist mechanical tropes, that I like it.
I doubt anyone has ever posted that you are a D&D-hater and a D&D-wrecker, even in response to your posts that you are not playing D&D. Yet plenty of people, because they happen not to like 4e, feel free to call me and other 4e players D&D-haters and D&D-wreckers! As if loving, and playing, D&D is a way of wrecking it!
if a large enough group of people get the exact same "feeling" from a specific set of mechanics, then it does no good to cavalierly dismiss their felt experience as somehow being irrational because you don't get the same vibe.
Who is dismissing it as
irrational?
I've said multiple times upthread that it's people's prerogative to play games they enjoy. Do you think I didn't mean it?
But in circumstances where those people are coming into discussion with others who don't have the same experience, I think it's reasonable to expect them to recognise that their tastes aren't universal, and that those who don't have the same experience aren't therefore bad RPGers, or non-RPGers, or munchkins,or power-gamers, etc.
4e supporters (maybe like you have in the past) told them they were approaching the game wrong. Said supporters told them that if they just played it enough they would learn to love it.
Can you give some quotes or indications of what posts of mine you think you're referring to?
From 2008 I was posting descriptions of what sort of RPG 4e would be, with reference to well-known features of RPG design from other systems: very high use of fortune-in-the-middle, hit points as luck/heroism/inspiration, closed scene resolution for non-combat (via skill challenges), metagame rationing to support pacing considerations (encounter powers, needing to unlock healing surges, etc). This was not because I'm a prescient genius but because it was obvious to anyone from what the designers were showing us, from
what Heinsoo said about the influence of indie design, etc.
I therefore anticipated that those who prefer simulationist design - or, at least, don't want any non-sim elements outside of 3E's action economy and who like hit points as meat - wouldn't like it. Which turned out to be true.
I've never suggested that anyone who plays it enough will "learn to love it", and I have no idea on what basis you think you're attributing that to me. When people have posted about particular experiences, I have given advice (mostly on GMing techniques) that I think might be relevant. When people have posted how 4e has destroyed D&D or RPGing as we know it, I have responded with my view as to why it does neither.
I read plenty of board game reviews and sometimes a game will get uniformly bad reviews, much to the disappointment of the designer. Sometimes, the designer will attempt to justify their game, explaining how, if you approach it with a certain mindset, or if you play it a dozen or more times, the game becomes really, really fun. And maybe the designer is right. But it doesn't matter. Because if people have to force themselves to learn to like your game, unless there is some sort of compelling reason why they should, its not going to happen.
And this happened with 4e.
What? 4e didn't get uniformally bad reviews. It got
nowhere near universally bad reviews. It was a wildy popular game, probably in the top 5 to 10 of all RPGs for popularity (depending on how you individuate various versions of D&D).
I wish I could release an RPG to such a uniformally bad reception!
