D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Snarf Zagyg]

Would you prefer to write all the rules from scratch for a game, or use a well-designed set by a writer and designer whose work you respect and enjoy?

I get that you do some FKR now, but come on. I know you like B/X and other written systems. This shouldn't be that challenging for you to grok- that having a good system to add downtime more normally to the gameplay loop can have benefits similar in kind (if not in degree) to having defined gameplay procedures for exploration. I know if a 5E player told you "I don't see the point of dungeon crawl procedures- just wing it or use skill checks!" you wouldn't buy it.

As someone who does a lot of FKR/minimal rules, as well as more crunchy systems, I don't think that this is a binary ... and I always find it annoying that so many people here (not you, but, you know, "people") treat this as some debating point.

Different approaches work best for different groups at different times. I love FKR. I also love running throwback 1e games. I like a lot of different things. Understanding that there is no single best approach that works best for everyone, all the time, is the key to both happiness, and not getting involved in very long threads on EnWorld.

 

[darjr]

@pemerton I’m almost certain we can’t communicate in this point.

For instance you talk about this thing not “breaking” the rules or game and I’m almost certain you mean it in ways that I’ve not been talking about.

 

[payn]

The people who liked 4e lost the war, not to the other side, but to the almighty dollar. And so it's become our Lost Cause.

Yikes.

 

[Mannahnin]

As someone who does a lot of FKR/minimal rules, as well as more crunchy systems, I don't think that this is a binary ... and I always find it annoying that so many people here (not you, but, you know, "people") treat this as some debating point.

Different approaches work best for different groups at different times. I love FKR. I also love running throwback 1e games. I like a lot of different things. Understanding that there is no single best approach that works best for everyone, all the time, is the key to both happiness, and not getting involved in very long threads on EnWorld.

Absolutely. That's why I was a little mystified.

(Although understanding this point doesn't seem to reliably keep either of us from getting into long threads. )

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

(Although understanding this point doesn't seem to reliably keep either of us from getting into long threads. )

Understanding my shortcomings is the first step to ignoring them.

 

[overgeeked]

Obviously we can do the whole thing freeform, but as @overgeeked (among others) has observed of, say, dungeon exploration, actually having procedures of play makes it more accessible and helps the players make informed decisions.

I would say that procedures are not rules, per se. They're a framework to make things easier at the table. Like initiative. It utterly fails to replicated anything approaching "reality" but it makes things dramatically easier as a game. If you care about that. If you want that. If...

Would you prefer to write all the rules from scratch for a game, or use a well-designed set by a writer and designer whose work you respect and enjoy?

Different tools for different jobs. Do I want to play that game by that designer, then I'll play that game. Do I want to immerse myself in a world, then I'll play it FKR.

I get that you do some FKR now, but come on. I know you like B/X and other written systems. This shouldn't be that challenging for you to grok- that having a good system to add downtime more normally to the gameplay loop can have benefits similar in kind (if not in degree) to having defined gameplay procedures for exploration.

It all depends on the game and what you're after. Do you want downtime to be a big part of your game, then sure...talk about downtime activities. I'm more than over the notion of having rules for everything. It's infinitely easier to ask the player what they want to do and come up with something than to have however many pages of rules covering as many common possibilities as possible. If nothing else, pull Questing for the Impossible from DCC RPG and be done. You want a cool thing, here's the quest you need to go on. Done.

That said, a focused game with a focused play loop could be fun. Something like say monster hunting and crafting from harvested monster parts would be cool. But you don't need rules for every possibility. It's absurdly unwieldy.

I know if a 5E player told you "I don't see the point of dungeon crawl procedures- just wing it or use skill checks!" you wouldn't buy it.

That's not an assumption you should make. You'd be wrong. I've literally set up entire dungeon crawling segments of games as nothing but skill checks and/or a skill challenge. It works so...so much better than marching zombie-like through each dreary step of each dreary procedure just because it's written down. If the procedure helps you, great...use it. If the procedure gets in your way, drop it like it's hot.

It's an intriguing concept, but I wonder how well it works with regard to playing spellcasters, or other PCs who possess magical powers (that don't come from items).

It actually works better and easier. Casters are limited to their imaginations and what limits the referee puts on magic in their world. So much better than 200+ pages of spells to look up and forget. "I want to freeze that guy in place." "Okay, roll it." Instead of wondering about spells, slots, what you have memorized or prepared, etc. Vastly easier with out all that mess in the way.

 

[Alzrius]

It actually works better and easier. Casters are limited to their imaginations and what limits the referee puts on magic in their world. So much better than 200+ pages of spells to look up and forget. "I want to freeze that guy in place." "Okay, roll it." Instead of wondering about spells, slots, what you have memorized or prepared, etc. Vastly easier with out all that mess in the way.

But how do you define what powers a spellcasting character has in the first place? What's within their theoretical capabilities? Presuming that their character has some idea of what they're capable of, wouldn't that mean that they have an idea of what range of results on a die roll constitutes success, rather than whatever the referee thinks is accurate? Is there a limit to how much magic they can use over time? What's the rest/recovery rate for it, etc.?

I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that FKR sounds like it's based heavily on a referee interpreting things based on how they think the world works, and so use intuition with regard to reality as the barometer for a lot of things in that regard (as per the experienced generals who didn't need charts and tables to figure out how things would proceed during an actual battle). But magic has no real-world equivalent from which to draw, meaning that the referee seems like they'd need to do a lot of heavy lifting (which also seems to run the risk of straining the burden of trust placed in them) to make it work.

 

[overgeeked]

But how do you define what powers a spellcasting character has in the first place? What's within their theoretical capabilities? Presuming that their character has some idea of what they're capable of, wouldn't that mean that they have an idea of what range of results on a die roll constitutes success, rather than whatever the referee thinks is accurate? Is there a limit to how much magic they can use over time? What's the rest/recovery rate for it, etc.?

Depends on the world.

Take something like Marvel superheroes. Okay. You're playing Human Torch. What can he do? Fly, shoot fire, flame sheath, make constructs out of fire, go nova, things like that. How much fire can Human Torch put out in a day? It doesn't matter. What's the rest/recovery rate? Doesn't matter.

What can a D&D-style spellcaster do? Depends on what you want to do. Do you want to be a necromancer? Then you can do that stuff. Do you want to vampire-like drain the life out of someone from a distance? Cool, roll it. Do you want to raise the corpse of the monster you just killed to fight by your side? Cool, roll it. Do you want to speak with the spirits haunting this place? Cool, roll it.

FKR is about emulating the world, not fretting about mechanics. Because, importantly, the mechanics cannot possibly emulate the world...no matter how complex. Build the world and the magic system to a point where it's coherent and makes sense, then you'll have your answers. Hint: it's not about spell slots, die rolls, or rest/recovery systems.

I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that FKR sounds like it's based heavily on a referee interpreting things based on how they think the world works (as per the experienced generals who didn't need charts and tables to figure out how things would proceed during an actual battle). But magic has no real-world equivalent from which to draw, meaning that the referee seems like they'd need to do a lot of heavy lifting (which also seems to run the risk of straining the burden of trust placed in them) to make it work.

Just like you'd have a Session 0 to get everyone on the same page in D&D, you'd still have a Session 0 to get everyone on the same page in an FKR game.

But you'd start with the world instead of the mechanics. If you wanted to play Mistborn for example, then we'd reference those novels and the associated wikis to work out how magic works. If you wanted to play Marvel Superheroes, then we'd reference the comics or films and the associated wikis and go from there. It's nowhere near as hard as people make it out to be. You still use reference works, they're just the works of fiction you want to emulate (or history books for historical settings, etc) instead of rulebooks.

If you don't trust the referee running your D&D game, why are you playing with them? The difference in trust required for an FKR game vs a D&D game is minimal at best. Again, that's what Session 0 is for, getting on the same page as each other.

 

[Alzrius]

Do you want to vampire-like drain the life out of someone from a distance? Cool, roll it. Do you want to raise the corpse of the monster you just killed to fight by your side? Cool, roll it. Do you want to speak with the spirits haunting this place? Cool, roll it.

FKR is about emulating the world, not fretting about mechanics. Because, importantly, the mechanics cannot possibly emulate the world...no matter how complex. Build the world and the magic system to a point where it's coherent and makes sense, then you'll have your answers. Hint: it's not about spell slots, die rolls, or rest/recovery systems.

Comparing your first paragraph to your second paragraph, it sounds like it does depend – at least in part – on die rolls. Certainly, if you have to build the entire magic system (which can't be intuited the way a battle with swords, etc. can be), then it sounds entirely plausible that it will involve something approximating spell slots and rest/recovery systems also.

But you'd start with the world instead of the mechanics. If you wanted to play Mistborn for example, then we'd reference those novels and the associated wikis to work out how magic works. If you wanted to play Marvel Superheroes, then we'd reference the comics or films and the associated wikis and go from there. It's nowhere near as hard as people make it out to be. You still use reference works, they're just the works of fiction you want to emulate (or history books for historical settings, etc) instead of rulebooks.

It sounds like, at least as far as magic goes, that works a lot better for playing in existing worlds than in original ones. Even then, I can see a lot of disadvantages with regard to people who know the source material better than those who don't. I don't think that "canon lawyers" are nearly as much of a thing as I've heard them made out to be on the internet, but I can see this idea leading to more instances of them. ("Actually, you might want to revise that ruling. The Human Torch did use his powers underwater in Amazing Spider-Man #362.")

If you don't trust the referee running your D&D game, why are you playing with them? The difference in trust required for an FKR game vs a D&D game is minimal at best. Again, that's what Session 0 is for, getting on the same page as each other.

Because it's not solely a matter of trust. There's going to be areas of legitimate disagreement with regard to how things "should" work, at least when it comes to areas in which the real world doesn't have approximations to work off of. Using existing fiction strikes me as a double-edged sword in that regard, and Session 0 can't anticipate every situation that arises. With no objective metric (i.e. a game rule) to fall back on, these disagreements run the risk of (at the very worst) causing a falling out.

I want to stress that I'm not saying that I think FKR is a bad idea; I just can't help but see the potential pitfalls as not being worth the gains, at least in certain aspects of play. It doubtless works very well if you're simulating a Napoleonic battle, but I think I'd like it a whole lot less if it was used for a game of Mutants and Masterminds.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I want to stress that I'm not saying that I think FKR is a bad idea; I just can't help but see the potential pitfalls as not being worth the gains, at least in certain aspects of play. It doubtless works very well if you're simulating a Napoleonic battle, but I think I'd like it a whole lot less if it was used for a game of Mutants and Masterminds.

Maybe I should write a thread on this?

D&D General - FKR: How Fewer Rules Can Make D&D Better

A lot of the time, I fail my own wisdom saving throw. I sometimes will refer to FKR with the assumption that people will know what I'm talking about, given that I've written about it in the past. However, as @Micah Sweet recently reminded me, that is not the case. So, since it has been a while...

www.enworld.org

TLDR; the best way to understand it is to do it. It's ... like a lot of things, it makes so much more sense in practice than in theory.