Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[Parmandur]

I'm not convinced that you really are trying to understand, but I'm in a lobby waiting for an appointment, so I'll bite.

As I said, I am more interested in tactics as a DM than as a player, because as the DM I believe I have a responsibility to maximize player engagement and fun, and tactical DMING is one of many tools that facilitates that *without* necessarily requiring the players to think tactically.

None of us like to focus on tactics as players. Strategy can be fun, but we find that a focus on tactics mostly just bogs things down for us.

So, what do I mean by those specific terms?

Strategy: this covers things like setting up an ambush, preparing a water trap for the fire elemental, luring the flying enemy into an area that limits flight, etc.

Tactics: in DnD, I understand tactics to refer to that sort of metagamey thing people do where you collectively organize the whole party's turns to best exploit every tactical advantage, in a style of play that is somewhat divorced from roleplaying during combat. Alternatively, it can mean that you are examining every option through the lense of "birds eye view" tactical advantage, rather than from the perspective of your character, insofar as those two are separate.

Now, tactically minded characters are a somewhat different beast, and 4e does the best job in DnD history of modeling such characters in a mechanically satisfying way. Ie, a way that makes the gameplay feel like what it is thematically representing, rather than relying entirely on player imagination to model the thematics.

I say that we are not tactical because we do not think tactically about the game while playing. We just play. that does interact with the "tactical" elements of powers, just like it always has with DnD character abilities. Bull rushing an enemy into a wall of fire in 3.5 isn't any different from using a power with forced movement to push an enemy into a wall of fire in 4e, it just has some different terminology, and the rules governing it are clearer, more reliable in terms of whether they will work without extra adjudication, etc.

The thing I don't understand is, how does that last part translate into tactics, for you? How is "the rules work more reliably without DM intervention" and "the rules and clear and consistent", etc about tactics? Bc for us, it isn't. It's just better game design, for us. Doesn't matter if that clarity is regarding complex player options or super simple ones, the clarity is a thing we like in games.

OK, excellent, thank you for that explanation: I think we were experiencing some equivocation of terminology. When you say "4e does the best job in DnD history of modeling such characters in a mechanically satisfying way" rather than "relying on player imagination to model the thematics" I feel I see the difference in our play styles and experiences, because the latter is how I prefer the game to play out, and when I was saying "tactical" perhaps "mechanically modeled in detail" is a more accurate way to describe it. You and yours like the specified mechanical narrative devices; I felt they were limiting, though obviously many of y'all here felt they were expansive which is why you loved the design.

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[Tony Vargas]

so "parroting" isn't quite accurate; .

I was trying to be as charitable as possible.

"Balance" and "reliability" are fairly vague in this context

I've shared the definition of balance I use, so I hope that's clear enough.

results on any edition can be charted for probability, so they are "reliable" in that sense,

Results of the system mechanics can be, but in defending 5e, we must appeal to DM's judgement quite a lot, at which point reliability in that sense cannot be claimed. Rather, one must find a reliable DM..

different options contribute different sorts of fun so can be viewed as somewhat "balanced."

It takes more than that. If one sort of fun comes up in one session out of 10, for just one instance, a character can't be balanced on just that one option, it will need others that come up more often.

Genre emulation can go a lot of different ways, depending on your source material.

Which is one of the reasons D&D has usually done so very badly. It lacks the robust balance and flexibility to be played in very different ways. Again, 4e is the outlier, there and it's less deplorable performance in evoking sub- genres outside the circular self- emulation of a Salvatore or Greenwood FR novel, may indeed be part of the feelz thing...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think its also quite possible to play 4e without really engaging with the tactical depth. The GM might need to stick to encounters that emphasize other elements of the game, so maybe not unleashing a level + 5 boss with some very tactically challenging encounter design, but instead putting more emphasis on story elements and letting the challenge level find a comfortable point.

I found this to be the case with my original group of players that they didn't care to be super tactically minded players or really try to optimize their characters overly much. They did discover it was fun to engage tactics to some extent and could be rewarding, and they didn't ignore the better combat options. It was just that they would take some good combat feat because "being a bad-ass" was part of the character concept, or maybe they'd take one that was sub-optimal for the same reason. This party rarely fought the most extremely challenging possible encounters that a bunch of optimizers might need to face to be challenged. It didn't matter to the story. I mean there's ALWAYS a tougher monster you could have thrown at any party.

The point is, combats didn't have to be strictly about flanking and putting on the right buff at the right instant, etc. It could be more about "we gotta get past the orc before the rope breaks!" or something like that.

This!

Yes! And honestly, we often used skill challenges as part of combat, combined with the ease of play, to free ourselves to focus *more* on the story and less on tactics. And the little fluff bits on every single power are cool, too, because it gives every power a snippet of lore to either use directly or as inspiration, which leads to even more story driven roleplaying.

And we all get so confused and frustrated when we see someone criticize 4e as "all about tactics" or "not a roleplaying game", because 4e helped many of my players come out of heir roleplaying shell, and the rest of us roleplay more now than we used to. When we do cooperate tactically, it is *in character*!

And to risk being a broken record, I do wish 4e has expanded on the improvisation advice. More detail on doing things like improvising the use of existing powers, creating and training new powers, etc.

 

[Garthanos]

One of the great feel of 4e was the sense of teamwork about how all characters come together in a conflict how all get climactic contributions. Not sure if that really is because of tactics.

 

[Parmandur]

I was trying to be as charitable as possible.

I've shared the definition of balance I use, so I hope that's clear enough. Results of the system mechanics can be, but in defending 5e, we must appeal to DM's judgement quite a lot, at which point reliability in that sense cannot be claimed. Rather, one must find a reliable DM..

It takes more than that. If one sort of fun comes up in one session out of 10, for just one instance, a character can't be balanced on just that one option, it will need others that come up more often.

Which is one of the reasons D&D has usually done so very badly. It lacks the robust balance and flexibility to be played in very different ways. Again, 4e is the outlier, there and it's less deplorable performance in evoking sub- genres outside the circular self- emulation of a Salvatore or Greenwood FR novel, may indeed be part of the feelz thing...

It's done well enough? I don't see 4E as having been "better" or "worse" in some sort of "objective" way at helping people pretend to be elves with friends, because you don't need "rules" for that, even. It helps some people, groovy, other things help other people. Balance in terms of contributing is also on the DM; reliance on a good DM is, for me, the core strength and heart of TTRPGing, as opposed to other pastimes I could pursue: that element of human judgement, that transcends anything a designer could forsee, or a programmer could account for in code.

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[Parmandur]

One of the great feel of 4e was the sense of teamwork about how all characters come together in a conflict how all get climactic contributions. Not sure if that really is because of tactics.

Well, sure, but you can get that with any RPG? Glad it helped you specifically, but that doesn't seem to be an objective difference.

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[Parmandur]

This!

Yes! And honestly, we often used skill challenges as part of combat, combined with the ease of play, to free ourselves to focus *more* on the story and less on tactics. And the little fluff bits on every single power are cool, too, because it gives every power a snippet of lore to either use directly or as inspiration, which leads to even more story driven roleplaying.

And we all get so confused and frustrated when we see someone criticize 4e as "all about tactics" or "not a roleplaying game", because 4e helped many of my players come out of heir roleplaying shell, and the rest of us roleplay more now than we used to. When we do cooperate tactically, it is *in character*!

And to risk being a broken record, I do wish 4e has expanded on the improvisation advice. More detail on doing things like improvising the use of existing powers, creating and training new powers, etc.

I would want to distance myself from claiming that 4E is "not an RPG," because of course it is. And if the mechanical fiddly bits helped y'all get into the RP aspect, awesome. But I can RP while playing Monopoly or Chess, it's a human attitude not a mechanical effect.

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[Garthanos]

Well, sure, but you can get that with any RPG?

Pardon we are talking about feels and that is bound to be affected by subjective elements. But the 9th level thief in 1e was not a contributor at all.. and the fighter felt like a sidekick himself by that level. And from what I seen 3e Druids bear accomplished as much as the fighter .

Also the mage at low levels didnt feel particularly magical at all.

 

[Parmandur]

Pardon we are talking about feels and that is bound to be affected by subjective elements. But the 9th level thief in 1e was not a contributor at all.. and the fighter felt like a sidekick himself. And from what I seen 3e Druids bear accomplished as much as the fighter .

Fair point about the feels; in my experience of every edition of D&D, this feeling of "contributing" or not, has never been an issue.

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[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, and I think that disappointment is fair, though I don't share it; it's still early days, who knows if a more in depth tactical approach is in the offering?

Well, obviously WotC could suddenly decide to release virtually anything, but I don't see this as 'early days' of 5e! This is 3 years since the official release of the game, is it not? I mean, 2.5 years. This is the point in 4e where it was 2011, the PHB3 had been released IIRC, most of the * Power series of books was out, and essentially the game was feature complete. Around this time WotC must have begun working on Essentials, since it was released in 2012.

So, I would expect that 5e is feature complete and mature. Beyond that every year that goes by and sees more material released for a game reduces the chances of any significant additions and revampings, short of an edition-roll-like event (IE like the release of Essentials or 3.5). I don't see anything like this in the cards for 5e. WotC doesn't have the staff, has evinced no interest in significant further 5e rules development, etc. Given the depth of the undertaking I feel entirely confident in my belief that no reworking of 5e in the direction of being 'more tactical' will ever happen. If it does, it will herald the release of a replacement version of the game, not just some supplement. This is exceedingly unlikely in the near to mid-term.