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

[MichaelSomething]

Sure, I agree that adding more mechanical aspects to make it fit might not be worthwhile in terms of practical aspects of play. But that's a separate issue from the narrative disconnect involved.

How so? The 4E designers made the decision to prioritize ease of use over narrative causation. They are clearly related, or at least in conflict.

To get at the heart of the matter, how can D&D offer mechanically complex Fighters while maintaining "associated mechanics"? That's the core issue. Is that something you're interested in exploring? Should we just exclude people who are sick of just rolling attack and damage?

 

[pemerton]

I notice that, when you become engaged in a debate, you tend to get snarky with people as time goes on. I suppose that's true for a lot of people, but it makes what would otherwise be a friendly debate rather unpleasant. If you find yourself making expressions like this one, maybe stop and ask yourself if you're making a constructive contribution to the thread.

What makes me a little snarky is someone talking as if from a position of knowledge, who in fact is unfamiliar with the most basic features of what they're talking about.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with ignorance, particularly in relation to trivial matters such as RPG rule sets. But I'm surprised to see bold, confident assertions being made from a position of ignorance.

Okay, but is that the case for every fighter PC in every 4E game? And why is it that such a character is always a PC and not an NPC?

PC or NPC is not a property of a character in the fiction. It's a description of who among the game participants owns/controls a character. So the real question is Why do the players get to control the implacable warriors, while the GM is stuck controlling the sea of mediocrities? And the answer is because - as per the blurb on the back of the PHB, THE WORLD NEEDS HEROES, a premise of the game is that the players control the protagonists.

There is indeed a narrative disconnect in one person in the entire game world operating by special rules that apply to literally no one else.

The character operates under the same "rules" as everyone else: they draw their sword (or whatever) and engage their foes in melee. They just happen to be implacable, relentless, remorseless, however exactly you wish to characterise it. Like Conan, or Eomer, or Aragorn, or Lancelot.

To me, it seems like complaining that (say) Cathy Freeman (Olympic 400m, Sydney 2000) or Gary Kasparov (champion chess player) or Rasputin (notoriously hard to kill) doesn't operate under the same rules as everyone else.

The idea such a character does not and cannot ever miss an enemy, no matter what the circumstances are – or regardless of how badly they fail an attack roll – can be legitimately described as a disconnect between what the mechanics are telling us and what the fiction is indicating, because other characters do miss on the same die roll values; and yet that's resolved because...the PC has a power that no one else in all the world has? Nowhere did Tolkien, Howard, Mallory, etc. write that their characters would forever strike true simply because of who they were (at least, not that I'm aware).

Conan always strikes true. He kills were-hyenas by punching them through the skull. Lancelot defeats whatever knight he jousts! Aragorn and Eomer meet on the field of battle, having cut their way through a sea of Orcs.

You are imposing an a priori conception of what the mechanics must mean, and then complaining that the fiction doesn't match that conception. And you're correct, it doesn't. So perhaps you shouldn't play 4e. But I can report from experience that I had no trouble understanding how the mechanics and the fiction relate - even though for the previous 19 years my main game had been Rolemaster, which has a completely different way of relating mechanics and fiction (and would have no room, either mechanically or conceptually, for "damage on a miss").

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Except the game world IS often full of 1st-level Fighters. Armies of them, veterans of various battles and still marching to and fro on their liege's commands. Look at GoT - everyone in that setting knows how to fight!

Knowing how to fight does not make someone a 1st level Fighter.

Class mechanics are mostly for players. Otherwise there are almost no smiths in the world, either, because Mending is so easy to pick up.

 

[Manbearcat]

No, mechanically those are the only outcomes that matter (leaving aside critical fumbles, if those are in play). Narratively, there's a much broader range.

How is the above not an advertisement for the exact “mechanics: fiction decoupling” that you’re lamenting about the design and play of 4e?

 

[Alzrius]

How so? The 4E designers made the decision to prioritize ease of use over narrative causation. They are clearly related, or at least in conflict.

Because (as I see it), one is a question of trade-offs (or "necessary evils," to put it another way) with regard to making the game run smoothly, whereas the other is a question of examining a certain (mechanical/narrative) process in-and-of itself, divorced from wider considerations. The idea of replacing hit points with hit locations and wound-tracking is one that can be very interesting in the latter consideration, but doesn't usually work with regard to the former, as it slows down play to a degree that most people don't consider it to be worthwhile.

To get at the heart of the matter, how can D&D offer mechanically complex Fighters while maintaining "associated mechanics"? That's the core issue. Is that something you're interested in exploring? Should we just exclude people who are sick of just rolling attack and damage?

There's no right answer to this question, because it's a matter of personal preference. Despite what I said above, I'm sure there are people out there who prefer to use hit location and wound tracking in the context of their game, regardless of the speed of play. A lot of other people don't.

Certainly, I have ideas for what I like, and can articulate why I like them (and dislike other things), but at the end of the day it's all going to come down to personal choice and compromises therein.

 

[Lanefan]

This rule is not stated anywhere in any edition of D&D. All rolling a natural 2 does is tell us that the attack roll failed.

Mechanically, this is true. Narratively, however, I know I always see (and thus narrate, as either player or DM) a '2' attack as being considerably less intimidating and-or easier to avoid than a '11' attack, assuming the 11 still misses.

No version of D&D has this concept of a "near miss" based on margin of failure of a roll to hit. At least in any of the rulebooks I've read (B/X, AD&D, 3E, 4e, 5e Basic PDF). Where is it coming from?

I can't remember where it's written but I'm pretty sure 1e states that an attack that misses by one is considered to have been blocked by the defender's shield (if the defender has one in use). It might be part of the saving throw rules for when items have to save against various things.

 

[pemerton]

The rules are, in a very real way, the physics of the game world.

This isn't true of AD&D - see the quote I posted upthread, in reply to you, about hit points as per Gygax.

It's not true of 4e D&D either. Just as in Gygax's quote, the rules establish parameters within which fiction is established. 4e's rules are in many ways more intricate than AD&D's, and so the parameters - especially in combat - are more constraining. But as per the quote from p 55 of the PHB, about the freedom enjoyed by the player to describe what happens when their PC does their thing, the rules don't literally dictate what is happening in the fiction.

I get that this is not your preference. But the fact that the game is not to your tastes isn't an argument that it produces incoherent or absurd fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Except the game world IS often full of 1st-level Fighters. Armies of them, veterans of various battles and still marching to and fro on their liege's commands. Look at GoT - everyone in that setting knows how to fight!

I am telling you about the rules of 4e D&D.

"Knows how to fight" is a property of an imaginary person in an imaginary world.

"Is a first level fighter" is a property of a game element in the real world.

Not every imaginary character who knows how to fight is a game element that is a first level fighter. That's just not how the 4e rules work. I know that you, and @Alzrius, and @Micah Sweet, and perhaps others posting in or reading this thread, don't like that. But your distaste for the rules doesn't meant that the rules produce incoherent or absurd fiction.

What will creating absurdity is if you change the rules and insist that every imaginary character who knows how to fight is a game element that is a first level fighter. But then the absurdity is not caused by 4e. It's caused by your change to the rules!

 

[Lanefan]

I think that there is a general divide on this issue.

Some people like the fact that PCs are defined by the adventures that they have been on; the "zero to hero" journey is not something foreordained, per se, but is something that occurs as a result of the choices of the player along the way. In other words, the PC is just like everyone else, except that they have chosen to do extraordinary things.

On the other hand, other people view PCs as being special because they are PCs. They are the heroes of a narrative- and saying that they aren't special makes no more sense than saying, "I don't get why that Spiderman comic has to have so much Spiderman in it." By definition, the PCs, as protagonists of the game, are the heroes, and therefore special.

Put me squarely in the first camp here.

IMO, while I subscribe to the first view, I believe that the second view is actually more popular with most people.

Decades of exposure to media that mostly focuses on one or a few protagonists/heroes - who inevitably always win in the end - will do that.

It's part of why Game of Thrones was so refreshing. The good guys didn't always win, there was a broad range of protagonists rather than just a very few, and some characters really did follow a zero-to-hero path (Sam Tarly e.g.).

 

[Micah Sweet]

How so? The 4E designers made the decision to prioritize ease of use over narrative causation. They are clearly related, or at least in conflict.

To get at the heart of the matter, how can D&D offer mechanically complex Fighters while maintaining "associated mechanics"? That's the core issue. Is that something you're interested in exploring? Should we just exclude people who are sick of just rolling attack and damage?

I'm all for mechanically complex fighters. All my games have them.