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

[pemerton]

Sure. What does that have to do with anything? That's hardly what I was discussing in my last post.

It beard directly on what you said in your last post:

what possible difference to someone's "resolve" (what does that even mean?) can there be to almost be hit by a sword versus almost being hit by a mace, or an arrow, or a blast of flame? And what if a creature is almost hit by an attack they're resistant to unawares, or they don't realize (either through ignorance or lack of sentience) that they're resistant?

The answer appears to be: more made up on the spot explanations.

It directly addresses the issue of awareness - 4e D&D handles that the same way AD&D does.

And it also addresses the issue of the difference to resolve. The fighter has to dodge the spear. But the Tiefling warrior doesn't care about the flames.

(As for the meaning of "resolve": Oxford Languages, via Google, gives me firm determination to do something. A character whose resolve has not been weakened, whose determination is unwavering, can also be described as resolute.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

It beard directly on what you said in your last post:

It directly addresses the issue of awareness - 4e D&D handles that the same way AD&D does.

And it also addresses the issue of the difference to resolve. The fighter has to dodge the spear. But the Tiefling warrior doesn't care about the flames.

(As for the meaning of "resolve": Oxford Languages, via Google, gives me firm determination to do something. A character whose resolve has not been weakened, whose determination is unwavering, can also be described as resolute.)

My post was about resistance to a damage type, and why it should matter if the attack does actually hit you, particularly if you're either unaware the attack is coming or unaware of your resistance to it (as many non-sentient monsters plausibly would be). With some exceptions, hit points should be "resolve" for them too, right? And don't quote Gygax at me again, please; the man is not the final word on anything, as much as I respect his body of work immensely. His opinion doesn't end discussions.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

So TL;DR: what I disagree with is dogmatic assertions about how things have to be in RPGing in general; and that 4e D&D has to be absurd or contradictory or laden with "cognitive gaps" in a way that AD&D is not.

The issue is, you're missing the point. They aren't saying that this is how RPG's have to be. They're saying that, in their mind, it's self evident that that's what RPG's are. So when you talk about how you interpret the game, it doesn't matter what evidence you bring forward. They will not ever accept that their interpretation is flawed, any more than you will accept that your interpretation is flawed. It doesn't matter how many Gygax quotes you throw at them. They have created this interpretation for how D&D (specifically) works. They can't really conceive of it not working this way because they have constructed the language they use surrounding the game where that interpretation is central to how they view D&D.

So, in that interpretation, it is the role of the game to define the fiction. It doesn't matter that you find this contradictory. In their interpretation, the narrative is fixed before hand. So, all weapon damage deals some injury. Any effect which cannot be directly correlated from the mechanics to the fiction is either ignored or rejected. So, a successful attack always strikes the target, always dealing some sort of injury and anything that deviates from that interpretation is either an outlier (dying from ingested poison where the character is dead with full HP, nary a wound to be found) or safely ignored.

And nothing you can say will change that. The argument against you is unassailable behind a high wall of "well, that's my playstyle". And, frankly, because they are every bit a part of the D&D community as you or I, we can't really gainsay that.

Until such time as some sort of compromise is made to bridge the different interpretations, there was simply no going forward. Which is frankly, where 5e comes in. You see it in how people talk about it as having stuff that they maybe don't like, but, not so much as to "break the camel's back". So, it's okay to have non-magical healing with fighters, and non-magical healing overnight. It's the compromise. It's maybe objectionable, but, not so much as to actually push people away.

And, now, with so many new players out there, all us old buggers who might care about this, are becoming more and more irrelevant. The "overnight healing" is the way D&D works. So on and so forth.

 

[pemerton]

The issue is, you're missing the point. They aren't saying that this is how RPG's have to be. They're saying that, in their mind, it's self evident that that's what RPG's are.

This is something I can take more seriously from RQ or RM or even GURPS players, than from AD&D players.

 

[soviet]

But D&D is full of these inconsistencies and ambiguities, right? I'm wearing leather armour and I have a Dex bonus. My opponent misses me by one. Did I dodge it, or did my armour absorb it?

 

[Manbearcat]

But D&D is full of these inconsistencies and ambiguities, right? I'm wearing leather armour and I have a Dex bonus. My opponent misses me by one. Did I dodge it, or did my armour absorb it?

Everyone knows the correct answer is "you dodgesorbed it." Though you might have taken "damage on a dodgesorb."

 

[pemerton]

My opponent misses me by one.

Also, in canonical AD&D and B/X, and also in 4e, it doesn't matter how much the attack misses by. So paying attention to that would be a table idiosyncracy.

In AD&D it sometimes matters how well an attack hits, eg monk stunning; and 4e has crit rules for when a 20 (or lower, if modified by a character feature) is rolled.

Contrast RM, where the attack result is looked up on a chart to yield concussion hits delivered and critical table rolled, and so the system clearly tells us that higher roll = better attack, and lower roll = worse attack.

Though even RM squibs on the did you block it with your shield? issue, punting that to a separate roll.

 

[Hussar]

This is something I can take more seriously from RQ or RM or even GURPS players, than from AD&D players.

Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'll admit, I find it really hard to take seriously as well. I've long commented that I find it baffling that anyone who seriously was into that sort of gaming would play D&D. But, the truth of the matter is that they do and they do take it very seriously.

And, to be fair, D&D doesn't really stand in the way of playing this way either. There's nothing really there that says, "Yeah, no, this won't work if you insist that the fiction and the mechanics are closely tied together. It certainly can work.

In the end, we lost this argument. And that's the bottom line. Those that insist that the mechanics define the game world won this argument. That's why we got 5e. 5e, as much as it can, bridges that gap and tries to give enough rope to both sides of the divide without hanging anyone. 4e was unapologetic in its approach and the fandom did not like that because it ran right into the face of what they thought D&D should look like. So, 5e rides the fence as much as it can and gives as little ammunition as possible to either side. On one hand, you have non-magical healing, but, it's pretty limited and easy to ignore. OTOH, you still have two step recovery and whatnot.

It really is quite impressive what they've done. And, because they've managed to toe that line for almost ten years now, I think people are pretty willing to start giving them the benefit of the doubt a lot of time. So, we get a toe dipped into damage on a miss with the weapons. We'll see how that pans out. Then, a little bit later, another change. Then another and another. Baby steps.

 

[pemerton]

Hey, don't shoot the messenger.

I thought I missed but damaged you anyway!

I've long commented that I find it baffling that anyone who seriously was into that sort of gaming would play D&D. But, the truth of the matter is that they do and they do take it very seriously.

And, to be fair, D&D doesn't really stand in the way of playing this way either. There's nothing really there that says, "Yeah, no, this won't work if you insist that the fiction and the mechanics are closely tied together. It certainly can work.

The stumbling block for me is that it only "works" in the sense of looking like the Black Knight scene in the Holy Grail.

Plus stop-motion combat.

 

[Hussar]

I thought I missed but damaged you anyway!

The stumbling block for me is that it only "works" in the sense of looking like the Black Knight scene in the Holy Grail.

Plus stop-motion combat.

Again it’s a fundamental breakdown in communication. We are just not speaking the same language.