D&D 4E Ron Edwards on D&D 4e

[overgeeked]

Yes. One of them started this thread.

Honest questions. What is “story now” and how is 4E an example of it?

 

[pemerton]

yea. And there were others as you say. Sorry about the fights. That sucks.

Thanks, but don't worry about it.

I discovered The Forge in the early 2000s, so not too long after the core essays were written, and thought Edwards's discussion of simulationism was brilliant - at that time, and through to the end of 2008, I played mostly Rolemaster and Edwards's essay diagnosed all the pressure points in RM design and play that I'd had to struggle with since it became my primary game in early 1990. I also found his narrativism discussions extremely interesting for helping me make sense of, and improve, aspects of my group's RM play. And Paul Czege's game Nicotine Girls - which I learned about from reading Edwards, I'm pretty sure - isn't something I could ever imagine playing, but reading it helped me manage the endgame of my second RM campaign far better than I could have done if I only ever read RM or D&D GMing advice.

When 4e came out, it seemed obvious to me what sort of design it was going for. I played it and loved it from 2009 until around 2016 when various factors (mostly a really big renovation that one of my friends took on) made it harder to keep the band together. Since then I've played a variety of games, but most frequently Burning Wheel, Classic Traveller and Prince Valiant.

My experience on ENworld has often been that if you like The Forge you must hate D&D; that if you like 4e you must hate D&D; and that if you don't play 5e D&D you must hate D&D. It's just the lie of the land here.

 

[pemerton]

What did you find interesting about the interview with Edwards?

It's a couple of months ago now, so my memory for the details has faded a bit, but basically what I said in the OP: I think he identifies some of the central features of 4e, and how it supports player-driven RPGing.

 

[Cadence]

Railroading is the removal of meaningful choices. Railroading is the opposite of fun. It precludes fun.

Not really.

Now you're just being a bad-wrong-fun purist. Which seems to fit with many of the things discussed in this thread. So, well played. ;-)

But seriously, I should take this part back to that other thread if it isn't closed- if I want to pursue it.

 

[overgeeked]

Now you're just being a bad-wrong-fun purist expletive. Which seems to fit with many of the things discussed in this thread. So, well played.

No, I’m stating my experience as a gamer who’s been engaged with the hobby for 37 years. I’ve yet to witness a single instance of railroading do anything other than deflate the players and spoil the fun at the table.

 

[niklinna]

Railroading is the removal of meaningful choices. Railroading is the opposite of fun. It precludes fun.

Oh, I don't know. Some amusement park rides are still fun, and some—typically published—RPG adventures I've done have been fun in spite of and even because they were obvious railroads, lampshading opportunities to lean into the railroading, or push against it, just to see how the GM tried to keep things on the rails in the absence of concrete advice in the prewritten material.

The specific example I have in mind is Fires of Ra for Torg: Eternity. The story was completely linear, and PC defeats and captures were literally scripted in, but it was "okay" because we knew the genre tropes meant we'd get a scripted rally/escape shortly after. Not only was the whole adventure railroaded, one of the more linear sections literally took place on a train.

Now, that adventure could have been way more fun if we'd had options to do things in a freer order, or optionally, but I still enjoyed it.

Apart from railroading that omits/precludes meaningful choices, there's railroading that actively punishes players for trying to make meaningful choices. I've been lucky enough to have only a few experiences of that, and boy was it ever not fun.

 

[pemerton]

Honest questions. What is “story now” and how is 4E an example of it?

"Story now" is a label used to describe an approach to RPGing where (i) the goal is that play should produce a story in the standard sense of that word (ie not just a series of connected events, but something with rising action, climax, character development, thematic significance, etc), and (ii) that first goal is to be achieved with no one having to actually write a story.

It contrasts with (i) story before - where someone (typically the GM or the module author) writes the story which the players play through - and with (ii) story after - where there can be war stories after the event, but play itself does not have those characteristics of a story. (A lot of wargaming can produce these sorts of war stories; but wargaming is not a "story now"-oriented hobby.)

The phrase "story now" comes from Ron Edwards and The Forge. Another label used for the same thing is "narrativism" - but on these boards (ie ENworld) "narrativism" is normally used to mean "story before" and so that term can be a source of terminological confusion.

The phrase "story now" is coined in the early 2000s. One of the first games written to be played in this sort of fashion - and predating the label by more than a decade - is Greg Stafford's Prince Valiant. But Edwards has always emphasised that this sort of play was happening using other systems not specifically written to support it - sometimes this gets labelled "vanilla narrativism". Ie playing story now without any fancy mechanical trappings. I've done this sort of play using AD&D: OA and an all-thieves campaign. I mention those details because they're pretty relevant: OA characters, and thieves, bring "baggage" and context/connections to the setting and situation that generate a drive/trajectory for play that not every AD&D character does, and that sort of drive or trajectory is necessary for story now play to happen.

I've also used RM for "vanilla narrativist" play. But these days I wouldn't go to RM or AD&D for this sort of RPGing because I know systems that are better suited and don't have mechanical aspects that get in the way.

4e supports "story now" play pretty well because most PCs bring thematic heft/trajectory (not all - archer rangers are a bit of an energy sink by default), it has mechanics that strongly encourage players to proactively engage the system, it uses scene-based resolution which supports pacing and stakes-setting (necessary for rising action, climax, theme, etc), and at every point where traditional D&D has favoured GM-driven "story before" (adventure hooks; deciding what the treasure is; etc) 4e encourages a player-driven approach instead (player-authored quests; magic item wishlists; etc).

A fuller discussion of some of this is in this old thread: D&D 4E - Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

 

[Charlaquin]

My experience on ENworld has often been that if you like The Forge you must hate D&D; that if you like 4e you must hate D&D; and that if you don't play 5e D&D you must hate D&D. It's just the lie of the land here.

I don’t agree at all. The Forge definitely isn’t popular around here, but I definitely don’t think that liking The Forge is associated with hating D&D. 4e is controversial here, as it is most places, but there are many of us here who liked it a lot, and I don’t think we would be accused of hating D&D. And while 5e is certainly the edition most discussed (and often treated as the default mode of D&D discussion), there are plenty of OSR folks here who don’t play 5e, and I don’t think any of them would be accused of hating D&D either.

 

[darjr]

Railroading.....

I'd say there are degrees of railroading. I've had games where I had to lead players by the nose to each "encounter" but then they let loose. I've also been in games where if I didn't narrate dang near everything, nothing would have happened. I've had players in both kinds of railroading have fun. It's not my prefered style by a long long shot but fun can be had.

 

[darjr]

I don’t agree at all. The Forge definitely isn’t popular around here, but I definitely don’t think that liking The Forge is associated with hating D&D. 4e is controversial here, as it is most places, but there are many of us here who liked it a lot, and I don’t think we would be accused of hating D&D. And while 5e is certainly the edition most discussed (and often treated as the default mode of D&D discussion), there are plenty of OSR folks here who don’t play 5e, and I don’t think any of them would be accused of hating D&D either.

the poison of the hateful anti forge or hateful anti story games folks ran deep everywhere for a while, it seems, I think and hope things are much better now.