D&D 4E Mike Mearls on how 4E could have looked

pemerton

Legend
That was imho 4E's biggest issue, a lack of theme.
On this, I take the view expressed by Campbell on these boards some years ago now:

4e Classic (4eC) sings with the right group, but requires a high degree of player buy-in to get the results that I want out of it. I tend to view 4eC as a visceral game about violently capable individuals who set out willingly or not to irrevocably enact change in their worlds who end up becoming mythic figures in their own right. This is highly reinforced in the assumed setting of the game with the backdrop of the Dawn War, tales of the fall of civilizations, and highly active Gods, Demon Princes, Primordials, etc. 4eC presents a world on fire in desperate need of heroes. Thematically it strikes the same currents that Greek Myth, the Diablo games, and Exalted does though tied to a more mortal perspective.

Of course to really embrace these aspects players need to be able to shift between awareness of the game's narrative to engaging its combat encounter mini-game while remaining focused on the underlying fiction. 4eC asks a lot out of the players, but I find the relatively unique combination of satisfying my narrative jones while engaging my tactical/strategic mind incredibly refreshing.
I see 4e as the most thematically vibrant version of D&D ever published - and the core books deliver that straight out of the box!
 

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Stacie GmrGrl

Adventurer
What is on the table is how "player-facing" (or codified/explicit) prospects for martial action declarations vs "GM-mediated" prospects for action declaration affect the table. Personally, my sense is it affects the table as follows:

1) In "player-facing" systems, players who play martial characters KNOW FOR CERTAIN (before play ever begins) that (a) their conception of their martial character's thematic portfolio will coherently port from their mind to actual play and (b) they can reliably depend upon being able to change the gamestate and attendant fiction through that archetype manifestation as a result.

This is constantly underplayed by detractors of this approach, but it is definitely a thing for both long term players of martial characters who have been denied this in GM-mediated play (or at least rendered less secure) and in new players who look at their player counterparts who choose spellcasters and merely by din of doing so KNOW FOR CERTAIN (before play ever begins) that (a) and (b) will be realized because of the nature of D&D's supernatural-effect-by-fiat (I cast x spell vs some form of possible misadventure to spellcast because dice are rolled) inherent to spellcasting PCs.

Fundamentally, in GM-mediated action resolution you're choosing to assume a less secure mental framework when you choose a martial character vs a spellcaster character (both in the ability to positively/profoundly change the gamestate via action declaration and in the reliability of the conception of your archetype being realized through play).

2) GM mental overhead and table handling time. Broadly, player-facing mechanics decrease my (as GM) mental overhead and decrease table handling time as we don't have to engage in some form of parlay/clarification-through-conversation in order to resolve my personal mediation of any given action resolution.

They also decrease my control over the fiction and my related ability to apply force (covertly or overtly) in order to dictate outcomes, which is a lovely side-effect! In-so-doing, they increase all player autonomy (creating greater parity in the stressload-by-way-of-insecurity that players of martial characters must endure in heavily GM-mediated systems) over the fiction.

You just stated exactly why I find 4e to be the best edition of D&D.

It's the only edition that actually gives me as a player real agency.

Every other edition seems to strip my agency away and turns D&D into just sessions of "DM-May-I... (Insert proposed action here)".
 

dave2008

Legend
You just stated exactly why I find 4e to be the best edition of D&D.

It's the only edition that actually gives me as a player real agency.

Every other edition seems to strip my agency away and turns D&D into just sessions of "DM-May-I... (Insert proposed action here)".

I think the issue is that for some older players (players who played a long time ago), some of their best moments came when they asked DM-May-I... and the DM said yes! Some of the best actions/combats/encounters/etc. occurred because the players simply asked if they could do X,Y, & Z (usually something wild, crazy, or creative) and the DM adjudicated it.

Now, you can still do this in 4e (it took me a few years, but I finally got my players to try it), but what I found (and I think others too) is that players only wanted to do what their "powers" told them they could do. It was the easier approach to play and DM. I just didn't see as many exciting and creative approaches to problem solving.

I started to fall into that trap as DM and had to actively work to add back the improve skills I grew up with in D&D/AD&D. I then had to work harder to get my young players to try it.
 

Stacie GmrGrl

Adventurer
Agreed with everything above and that (b) is most certainly the lynchpin. The only thing I'll add is that you forgot to add the savant-level memory component required to assimilate an (dare-I-say genre-defying?) overwhelming curriculum of precise arcane formulae (surely in ancient, nigh-impossible-to-articulate, tongues) and spit them out with absolute precision and reproducibility under the most stressful situations that a human can endure.

They get a pass on the ridiculous mundane components of their craft (because fiat via systemization - designer choice), but chin-ups and jumping need to be mediated?

A simple spellcasting system that hooks into the basic action resolution system (roll Arcana vs DC, Success With/Cost or Complication or Fail Forward) would do wonders for parity (particularly noncombat action resolution) in a system like 5e. It certainly does wonders in other systems (systems that don't possess the weighty, player-facing text inherent to the spellcasting lists; my (a) above). But, by designer choice (first principles being homage/familiarity), they did not. To represent a position that such a design choice has no implications upon play is...something...

This is why I love Fantasy Craft so much. It's a d20 fantasy class/level game that is built with a skill based magic system and is a much more martial focused game. It keeps the adventuring tropes of D&D while giving us a much more robust toolkit to work with.

Of its 11 classes, only 1 is actually dedicated to magic.
 

Stacie GmrGrl

Adventurer
That was imho 4E's biggest issue, a lack of theme. The game mechanics were strong and clean, but the core books had about as much personality as a doorknob (none). I bought everyone of my old gaming group a 4E PHB, got heavily invested in the books, but any motivation I had for DMing 4E was quickly drained by the clinical nature of the rules. I even attempted to get other adventure settings/adventures converted to 4E, but due to the mechanical nature of 4E, I got quickly bogged down in number crunching mode. Eventually I threw up my hands and had the realisation, why try to convert an old D&D/Pathfinder adventure to 4E, when I can just DM Pathfinder. The issue there was that it wasn't D&D and that threw up some obstacles for the rest of the group... Eventually we got back together for some 5e gaming, but life being life, we're now stuck on a 'once in a blue moon' schedule of board games... Being adults sucks! (And I've been one for a while now!) ;-)

I am opposite. The clinical nature of 4e allowed me to really envision and bring out the cinematic action scene movie fest kind of gameplay that 4e really pulled off that most other rpgs have failed at doing for me. And I don't mean other D&D games... I mean most other rpgs period.

The thing that 4e did is that it tapped into my visual picture thinking mindset. Every ability, every class and role and every action was supported in a strong Visual sense. Not a verbal, story sense.

Yet for me, being able to See the Visual of the Action did one thing I haven't found much in rpgs...

These rules Created Story for me while giving me as a player true Player Agency (at least in combat).

Having that Agency was very empowering.

I do agree with you that adulting sucks. :)
 

pemerton

Legend
I think the issue is that for some older players (players who played a long time ago), some of their best moments came when they asked DM-May-I... and the DM said yes! Some of the best actions/combats/encounters/etc. occurred because the players simply asked if they could do X,Y, & Z (usually something wild, crazy, or creative) and the DM adjudicated it.
My take on this is that if your best RPGing moments are coming about when you ignore the system, then the system isn't fit for purpose!

My impression is that this experience - of needing to "transcend" the system to get good gameplay - is mostly found in groups whose main experience is with very narrowly focused systems being used to play games with a different focus. AD&D would be a poster-child for this - its system has a very narrow focus on a certain sort of dungeon exploration (endless subystems for dealing with doors; no robust subsystems for fixing a cart or jumping a ditch, let alone piloting a boat through a storm or acrobatically leaping over a foe), and starts to creak pretty badly even when used for wilderness exploration (eg look at how recovery times break down in that sort of play), but gets "used" to play games that have nothing to do with dungeon or even wilderness exploration.

I have no idea whether your own group and experience are consistent with my experience, or not.
 

Cergorach

The Laughing One
You just stated exactly why I find 4e to be the best edition of D&D.

It's the only edition that actually gives me as a player real agency.

Every other edition seems to strip my agency away and turns D&D into just sessions of "DM-May-I... (Insert proposed action here)".

Sorry, but then you have a bad player/DM mesh. "I want to do X." or "Can I do Y?" are very common, most often because the player doesn't know the specific rules for the action or doesn't know how realistic an action is to perform. With systems like Shadowrun where most actions are codified this still happened. With systems like Vampire/Mage where many powers are very open ended this also happened. How creative a player is depends on the player, not the rules system. But as a creative player myself, I find a more open ended rules system like Mage (and to a lesser degree Vampire) more conducive to creativity. As a person, I like codified rules systems like Shadowrun or 4E Mechanically, but as a DM there are quite often far too many rules I can't all remember, that is especially bothersome when there are quite a few people that know those books inside out and some are rules lawyers. Having to often refer to the rules for subsystem X/Y/Z is bothersome and really messes with the flow of the game, the game session, takes too much time and generally has a negative impact on my gaming group.

Now you can rag on 2E all you want, but not having rules for everything makes things harder for some things and less hard for others. The problem is that not even codified rules sets have rules for every action, you want to do something cool, but very cinematic, people who are used to the rules say "Can't do that." Why? "Because it isn't in the rules.". Now, these are extremes, but I've seen both.

If 4E works for your group, great, happy you found something that fit with your gaming style. The problem I see is that quite often there is only one guy/Grl in the group with which this works and maybe 1-2 that can work with it (for a time), the rest doesn't and hates it. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it works for everyone. Of course there are groups that all love this or all hate this. But sales and the market strongly indicated that 4E wasn't a success for D&D and that Pathfinder was a better course for sales, 5E changed direction dramatically as a result.
 

pemerton

Legend
Sorry, but then you have a bad player/DM mesh. "I want to do X." or "Can I do Y?" are very common, most often because the player doesn't know the specific rules for the action or doesn't know how realistic an action is to perform.

<snip>

How creative a player is depends on the player, not the rules system.

<snip>

As a person, I like codified rules systems like Shadowrun or 4E Mechanically, but as a DM there are quite often far too many rules I can't all remember, that is especially bothersome when there are quite a few people that know those books inside out and some are rules lawyers. Having to often refer to the rules for subsystem X/Y/Z is bothersome and really messes with the flow of the game, the game session, takes too much time and generally has a negative impact on my gaming group.

Now you can rag on 2E all you want, but not having rules for everything makes things harder for some things and less hard for others. The problem is that not even codified rules sets have rules for every action, you want to do something cool, but very cinematic, people who are used to the rules say "Can't do that." Why? "Because it isn't in the rules.". Now, these are extremes, but I've seen both.
Actually, 4e does have a rule for everything that is not a combat challenge:

(1) work out whether or not the action is possible (given considerations of genrre, tier, PC capability from the point of view of the fiction, etc);

(2) if the answer to (1) is yes, then set a DC using the DC-by-level chart (this may or may not be part of a skill challenge, depending on whether or not the GM takes the view that the action being attempted is scene-worthy in itself);

(3) resolve the skill check/skill challenge in accordance with the rules for such - make a check, apply adjustments for fictional advantage, power expenditure, etc (which in some cases may make success automatic), determine success/failure.​

This is very similar to the rule(s) of Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars/Quest, and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic (all of which have the same sort of rule for everything). And it's not "codified" at all.

Now if by everything you mean every possible combat manoeuvre then the situation is a bit different. Every character does have a list of codified abilities. But there is also a very robust set of improvisation rules.

What's the DC to blow a demon through a timber wall using Thunderwave? AD&D doesn't tell me. 5e doesn't tell me. 4e does - pick the DC of the DC-by-level table and make an Arcana check.

Now maybe there are crappy GMs out there (including players acting as backseat GMs) who want to block an interesting action like that. I don't see how 2nd ed AD&D makes any difference to that temperament - just as creativity is a property of the player, so is being a boring railroader - but 4e actually (i) has a section that discusses how to adjudicate these things, and (ii) has the system resources (DC-by-level and damage-by-level charts) to deliver.

EDIT: Here's another take on the issue, one that's been suggested to me quite a bit in recent threads:

If "action resolution" really means nothing more than the GM decides what happens, then what is the role of the player? Apparently, to make suggestions to the GM. Only the GM is actually playing the game!
 

pemerton

Legend
Just because it works for you doesn't mean it works for everyone.
Who do you think has asserted the contrary? Every paragraph you quoted from [MENTION=86279]Stacie GmrGrl[/MENTION] had some first person pronoun or adjective in it ("I", "me", "my"). She was talking about her gaming experiences and preferences, not everyone's.
 

Personally I find this quite odd, for multiple reasons.

I've GMed AD&D games with all "martial" PCs - eg all warriors in OA, all thieves in KotB/City of GH. Those games didn't become boring because all the players had similar resource suites. What is interesting is not inventory management, but deciding what to do to engage the present situation.

And in our 4e game, it's never been the case that "everyone knows when to use which power". Eg deciding which NPC to dominate, or when to pull in a group of enemies, or when to heal, has been pretty significant. And it has certainly mattered which enemy is targetted by which power! To be completely blunt, you seem to be describing a very uninteresting game - if the only or principal interest is going to arise from deciding who should sleep when!

It fixed it perfectly well precisely because there is a mechanical framework for minionisation!

Likewise the were-hyenas can be handled as a swarm. (Which an appropriately-built fighter can carve apart using close bursts.)

You may find it odd, a little bit simplified, but that situation describes our games well enough. I played and DMed since ADnD 2nd edition and even though we really had good intentions, the game became more and more boardgamey. Especially as a DM every encounter was so easily balanced that the outcome was more of less determined when planned. It felt like cheating putting too hard challenges in and all others were nearly senseless because after a short rest everyone was at nearly full power once again.

If not everyone ia on the same schedule, you can't always say how hard a fight is getting. How much resources are wasted or were already spent. And you can make a hard fight easier with clever decisions.

4e had its merits. If you prefer "combat as sport" 4e is perfect. It is just not what we wanted out of a roleplaying game. And the AEDU structure increased the feeling.

That said, I am not perfectly happy with any dmg or phb rest option. I found one however that allowed all classes to recover their resources at a reasonable rate.
 

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