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

[overgeeked]

Here is an exchange on twitter (x?!)

I think ya'll know I'm on Mike Shea's side of the skill challenge thing, at least here, I don't know if he's softened on his stance or not, I kinda have from that and am closer to Shawn.

Notice even Shawn notes that SC's in 4e were flawed "implemented poorly", ill-conceived as it were, and yet he praises one out of an adventure written by Chris Tulach. It's a good adventure and the writing in the skill challenge is amazing. But yet I look at it and see the skill challenge doing the part of the players. Spoonfeeding the DM and the players how it's supposed to go. Maybe that's just me but I've heard that complaint before.

Now Shawn praises it and said he had a great time running it but I bet, almost guarantee, he didn't run it as 4e raw. Not at least the form it was back then. And so I stand by my position that it was ill-concieved, even skill challenge fans of Shawn Merwins calibre, probably, very likely, didn't use it as it was published.

So who runs stuff as raw you say? Yea, probably nobody. sure.

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I love the idea of skill challenges but the implementation was terrible. If you see them as a worse version of clocks, take that idea...mangle it, twist it, turn it around, and basically just use clocks...call that "skill challenges"...use them narratively and loosely, they work perfectly. If you try to run them RAW...you're going to have a bad time.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, that argument falls apart the  moment we start talking about damage types.

There's also the problem of "cure wounds" and basically all the fluff and mechanics of healing when hit point loss is not meant to be meat points. If hit points are not meat points, then you've taken no damage and have suffered no wounds to cure. There's nothing to heal if hit points are energy, exhaustion, expertise, breath, etc.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The problem is that introducing that narrative creates expectations that the mechanics will reflect that narrative operation under the game engine. Again, a lot of people don't mind when this doesn't happen, but the ideal is for the fluff and the crunch to operate as two sides of the same coin, so an instance where that doesn't work is (ideally) an instance where things can be further refined (though in point of fact, there are some areas where a better method has yet to be found, despite decades of innovating).

If a "wind blade" power kicks in on a miss, for instance, we'd expect it to also kick in on a hit. Coming up with mechanical explanations for why it doesn't then adds a further narrative burden. For instance, the idea that the swing needs to be uninterrupted in order to generate that wind ignores what happens when/if you're fighting a foe with no corporeal substance, such as the aforementioned ghost/air elemental. Moreover, it begets questions of why the character isn't simply winding up with a larger swing before trying to strike their enemy?

To reiterate, the problem isn't coming up with a narrative justification for damaging someone with a missed attack; it's coming up with narrative justification that doesn't disrupt the immersive experience of play. Obviously, that threshold will be different for different people, but there seems to be a lot of people for whom the extant justifications fall short (myself among them).

The point of the narrative justification is not to explain how the mechanics work in any kind of rigorous way.

It's intent is to say "this makes enough sense for you to stop worrying about the fundamental nature of the Armor Class rules".

It's the same tool we use for Evasion.

 

[CleverNickName]

There's also the problem of "cure wounds" and basically all the fluff and mechanics of healing when hit point loss is not meant to be meat points. If hit points are not meat points, then you've taken no damage and have suffered no wounds to cure. There's nothing to heal if hit points are energy, exhaustion, expertise, breath, etc.

Oh man. Don't even get me started.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Skill Challenges were a great idea that was terribly executed. And often terribly run. When run well (either by using houserules or following the best advice in the better, later DMs books) they could be really, very good. When run poorly (either by following early RAW, or worse, following to the letter how they were written in most Adventures, or just by not understanding them very well) they were TERRIBLE.

I think anyone who played much 4e probably experienced both.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh man. Don't even get me started.

Well...I mean...if we're really going to do the "fiction doesn't match the mechanics" thing we might as well actually talk about it. But no one really wants that.

 

[overgeeked]

So to start with, I don't believe that I have told anyone to feel differently yet.

However, I also do not believe that feelings should be immutable or outside the scope of available levers to pull to increase your net enjoyment of the hobby.

As you say, it is completely fine to feel however you want about a thing. But if that thing bothers you, your options to maximize your satisfaction are:

1. Don't engage with it
2. Change the thing so you're satisfied with it
3. Change how you feel about it.

Feelings aren't immutable. Stuff you like now, your past self would hate, and vice versa. We teach ourselves to like things all the time. I didn't always drink coffee. I didn't always appreciate baseball.

It doesn't always work. I still don't like mayonnaise or pineapple on pizzas.

But it can be a perfectly viable strategy for getting to enjoy something you don't currently.

Most people find it easier to try to control other people's emotions than their own. When they really have zero control over other people's emotions. It's kind of a weird thing people do.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I've always had an issue, in every edition, with the disparity between being at 0 hit points (dead, dying, or unconscious, depending on edition) and 1 hit point (fully functional, if fragile).

I agree entirely with you here. That last HP is too meaningful and the others are too meaningless for my taste, but we do what we can.

 

[overgeeked]

A forked thread about the divergence of fiction from mechanics.

 

[Micah Sweet]

1. It might also kick in on hit. I'm not trying to design a specific power, just illustrating that there isn't a thematic impossibility here.

That said...

2. If it didn't, it's could be because the flesh of your enemies slowed you down enough that you did not to generate those forceful gusts.

Or something..
Again, not trying to design anything specific. Just pointing out that the problem seems eminently handle-able with a very small bit of narrative.

My point has always been that you shouldn't have to massage the narrative to accommodate the rules.