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

[Micah Sweet]

I played a historical RPG set in post-Roman Britain, which was pretty much a DnD chassis, similar combat, etc. In it, you had your traditional attack roll in combat, which did damage. However, each weapon had its own Shock value, and AC target. You did shock damage on a miss if the if the attack roll failed, and the target has equal to or less AC than listed for the weapon.

I liked the mechanic as it added another layer to combat, made armor (or lack thereof) a consideration, differentiated weapons, and also pretty much meant you were going to take damage in combat (potentially ending the combat much earlier), and so really thought hard about engaging in fighting, or worked to stack things in your favor.

In DnD, HP being luck, meat, endurance, magic fairy dust, or whatever, or all of it, it does make some sense to me that the "miss" also eats up your luck, or endurance as you're getting out of the way, or beginning to tire, even if the blade never touched you.

At which you can ask, "why don't all attacks do damage on a miss then? Why do you need some sort of special feature for that effect"?

 

[overgeeked]

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

The bit that seems to be the sticking point is that narrative inevitably comes from the rules, regardless of what those rules are. The reason OSR games generate different kinds of narratives is because the rules push the narrative in those directions. Even if those "rules" are standards of different styles of play rather than codified in the book. You don't have a problem with the narrative of OSR games because the rules generate the kind of narrative you want. You do have a problem with the narrative of 4E because the rules do not generate the kind of narrative you want.

 

[Alzrius]

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.

I suspect this is where we're disagreeing, since if it doesn't make "enough" sense, then the narrative isn't serving as a justification to begin with. Evasion works because it suggests that you're evasive enough to avoid things that other people can't (at least, not fully; presuming you're referring to the 3.X evasion). But that's going to be different for everyone, and moreover if the narrative used introduces new elements that aren't reflected in the mechanics, then it's going to be an issue for some people.

 

[overgeeked]

At which you can ask, "why don't all attacks do damage on a miss then? Why do you need some sort of special feature for that effect"?

That's like asking why don't all character get fireball. It's a way to mechanically differentiate some classes from others. If memory serves, it's mostly the melee classes who had damage on miss to give them something for being in melee instead of cowering at the periphery of a fight. You take the risk of getting hit, you get to do a bit more damage on average.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The bit that seems to be the sticking point is that narrative inevitably comes from the rules, regardless of what those rules are. The reason OSR games generate different kinds of narratives is because the rules push the narrative in those directions. Even if those "rules" are standards of different styles of play rather than codified in the book. You don't have a problem with the narrative of OSR games because the rules generate the kind of narrative you want. You do have a problem with the narrative of 4E because the rules do not generate the kind of narrative you want.

Yeah, pretty much.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's like asking why don't all character get fireball. It's a way to mechanically differentiate some classes from others. If memory serves, it's mostly the melee classes who had damage on miss to give them something for being in melee instead of cowering at the periphery of a fight. You take the risk of getting hit, you get to do a bit more damage on average.

And that's fine. But your explanation would apply to any attack; that's the issue I'm having. That isn't the case with fireball. You either know and can cast the spell, or you don't.

 

[pemerton]

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

I don't fully agree. But Gygax agreed with you, and makes this point in his DMG.

 

[Alzrius]

In DnD, HP being luck, meat, endurance, magic fairy dust, or whatever, or all of it, it does make some sense to me that the "miss" also eats up your luck, or endurance as you're getting out of the way, or beginning to tire, even if the blade never touched you.

I know that the idea of "hit points as a conglomeration of endurance, physical wounds, luck, divine favor, etc." goes all the way back to AD&D 1E, but as much as I admire Gary Gygax, he wasn't very consistent in that regard. He offered the "conglomeration" explanation once that I recall (in the DMG), but then has every other instance of regaining hit points treating them like injuries. What's the spell called that restores hit points? Cure light WOUNDS. What's a non-magical way of restoring lost hit points? It's not praying at a temple, and it's not performing good luck rituals, etc. It's bed rest.

That's without even returning to the issue of making an attack roll with a poisoned blade, as mentioned above.

 

[Gammadoodler]

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

You don't.. if you accept the mechanical elements as they are (insofar as they are internally consistent), when you craft the narrative in the first place.

The "problem", in my experience, comes when you map in outside, typically real-world, expectations, which have no intrinsic or necessary connection to your fantasy setting.

The GM is in control of the settings they create. If they want a different setting experience than the rules facilitate, they should expect problems.

Besides all this, generally speaking, the concept we were talking about has been AC, which has no real narrative heft. It is "generic protection against attacks", and it protects an abstraction in "hit points".

Suggesting that an ability exists where you can bypass generic defense to degrade an abstraction should not require narrative justification. Like this is 100% rules abstraction BS.

I've only provided one such justification to illustrate how easy it is.

 

[pemerton]

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

You mean like with hit point loss, the absence of a death spiral, cure wound spells, etc?

There are systems that do what you want, but I just don't see how D&D is one of them! It seems like you should be playing Runequest.