101 roleplaying descriptions justifying martial dailies
- Thread starter Aberzanzorax
- Start date
I will keep giving 4E another look, to see whether the presentation and my experience in play has been misleading. I think that at the very least, the sheer overload of "abstraction first" rules is a distraction from the "situation first, rules second" approach to play. That factor of how much is cut and dried -- and how much importance is placed on the implicit game balance of the complex structure -- marks a notable difference from the abstraction of (e.g.) Tunnels & Trolls.
Well, you did write Champions/Hero System at the start of your post which in turn was in response to Ariosto's post which referred to Champions (a.k.a. Hero System). So, it would be reasonable to assume that your later reference to Champions was to both
LostSoul
Adventurer
I agree.
I think that one could easily to a "situation first, rules second" game, but you'd need to agree that was how you wanted to play the game. Given the state of gaming culture in late 3E, I guess it was inevitable that "rules first, situation second" has become the default way to play the game.
Interesting discussion here. It seems like there are really two separate things people are asking for:
1. A system that has an already given set of fluff, and mechanics, that match up with each other.
2. A system that enables players to take fluff they make up and translate it into mechanics.
---
For (1), threads like these, which provide ideas for fluff that people can put into their games, are very useful. Of course, whether a particular piece of fluff is adequate is completely subjective. For instance, I have no problem with the "fluff explanation" that the reason martial abilities have use restrictions the same as magical abilities is because they are really two different manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon, in the same way that (IRL) electricity and magnetism are two manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon - electromagnetism. I have proffered this explanation in other threads, and have noticed that it is not satisfying to many. There's nothing wrong with this - it's just that different people prefer different fluff.
I will, however, make a few related comments.
1a. Almost all the discussions about 4e fluff not matching up with mechanics tend to mention the same few examples - encounter/daily use restrictions, "physical" forced movement being treated the same way as "mental" forced movement, knocking oozes prone, leader healing abilities like Inspiring Word working on unconscious characters, and of course the old favorite Come and Get It. This means that it might be possible to get rid of most of the problem just by changing a relatively few problematic rules. (I am planning on posting a thread in the 4e House Rules forum about this issue - when I do that I will post a link to it here.)
1b. There were a lot of mechanics that didn't have any kind of "fluff" associated with them - or at best relatively vague and handwavey fluff - in all editions of D+D and probably most other games. How exactly do hit points work? What are you physically doing when you "prepare" a spell? When you use a long-range telepathy spell, how do you designate the target? (Is there a telepathic "phone number"?) What does a character perceive (if anything) at the moment he goes up in level? (Do characters even know what level they are? If not, how do wizards know what types of what level spells they can prepare?)
1c. The kind of "fluff description to justify mechanics" that is being demanded here is often not available even in real life. For example, when I push down on a car's gas pedal, the car accelerates. That's a "mechanic" - when I do this, that happens. What's the "fluff" that justifies this "mechanic"? In order to know that you would have to know how a car's engine works. But of course you don't have to know how a car's engine works in order to drive the car. Most of us do just fine only knowing the "mechanics."
Now let's move on to (2). This is a little more complicated - we now want a system that will enable people to translate their own fluff into mechanics. Let's look at a few different ways of handling this.
2a. One way is the "toolkit system" approach used in systems like HERO/Champions. Systems like these allow you to design your own powers, items, and creatures by giving yo ua language to express abilities in terms of mechanics. For example,
If you want to "build a game model" of a Panzer in the HERO system, you could do that. You would take each element of the Panzer, decide what it can do, and express that as a power. Main gun? Ranged killing attack, Xd6, armor piercing, takes Y rounds to reload, etc. Armor? Physical defense, value Z. Targeting system? Combat Skill Level that gives +W to attacks with the main gun. Then the system would tell you how many game points each of these are worth, so you give the whole tank a "point value" which is the HERO system's counterpart to "character level."
There's only a couple problems with that:
2a.1. Since you have more freedom in making your own powers, there's a lot more ways to abuse the system. (For instance, I figured out a way to make a power in the HERO System that only costs 70 or so character points but can provide the entire party with 1,100 character points' worth of bonuses to their attributes.) So it still requires DM judgement to outlaw abuses.
2a.2. It doesn't technically solve the original problem, which was to have a system that allows you to input a "fluff" description and receive as output a mechanical description. You still have to convert the fluff into mechanics yourself (in the Panzer example, figure out what X, Y, Z, and W are) - the system just gives you maximum variety in the kind of mechanical descriptions you can come up with, so you can make it match the fluff more closely.
On the other hand, the general idea of a system that "allows you to input a "fluff" description and receive as output a mechanical description" seems to me to be infeasible without a lot of DM fiat. For instance, how would such a system work that would allow you to build a tank like the one above? Presumably it would have to have some way of converting a "fluff description" of the armor (X millimeter thick wall of Y material) into a mechanical description (blocks Z points of damage). In order to be able to do this in a general way it seems like you would have to have a complete model of the world's physics, chemistry, biology, etc.
---
2b. Another approach, that tends to be simpler, is the "abstract model." Systems like these completely separate the fluff from the mechanics. An example is the FATE system. In this system there is a set of general rules for handling a combat, with generic actions (attack, attack but do an effect other than damage, defend, recover, use an aspect to enhance one of the above). Players' decisions still have an impact on the combat, and it's still possible to translate actions ("I push the target out of the way") into mechanical descriptions ("Like a regular attack, except that if you hit the target is out of the combat for one round instead of being wounded") So different actions can end up working differently, but again the translation from "fluff" to "mechanics" still involves DM judgement. It's just that there are a lot fewer complicated rules getting in the way.
1. A system that has an already given set of fluff, and mechanics, that match up with each other.
2. A system that enables players to take fluff they make up and translate it into mechanics.
---
For (1), threads like these, which provide ideas for fluff that people can put into their games, are very useful. Of course, whether a particular piece of fluff is adequate is completely subjective. For instance, I have no problem with the "fluff explanation" that the reason martial abilities have use restrictions the same as magical abilities is because they are really two different manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon, in the same way that (IRL) electricity and magnetism are two manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon - electromagnetism. I have proffered this explanation in other threads, and have noticed that it is not satisfying to many. There's nothing wrong with this - it's just that different people prefer different fluff.
I will, however, make a few related comments.
1a. Almost all the discussions about 4e fluff not matching up with mechanics tend to mention the same few examples - encounter/daily use restrictions, "physical" forced movement being treated the same way as "mental" forced movement, knocking oozes prone, leader healing abilities like Inspiring Word working on unconscious characters, and of course the old favorite Come and Get It. This means that it might be possible to get rid of most of the problem just by changing a relatively few problematic rules. (I am planning on posting a thread in the 4e House Rules forum about this issue - when I do that I will post a link to it here.)
1b. There were a lot of mechanics that didn't have any kind of "fluff" associated with them - or at best relatively vague and handwavey fluff - in all editions of D+D and probably most other games. How exactly do hit points work? What are you physically doing when you "prepare" a spell? When you use a long-range telepathy spell, how do you designate the target? (Is there a telepathic "phone number"?) What does a character perceive (if anything) at the moment he goes up in level? (Do characters even know what level they are? If not, how do wizards know what types of what level spells they can prepare?)
1c. The kind of "fluff description to justify mechanics" that is being demanded here is often not available even in real life. For example, when I push down on a car's gas pedal, the car accelerates. That's a "mechanic" - when I do this, that happens. What's the "fluff" that justifies this "mechanic"? In order to know that you would have to know how a car's engine works. But of course you don't have to know how a car's engine works in order to drive the car. Most of us do just fine only knowing the "mechanics."
Now let's move on to (2). This is a little more complicated - we now want a system that will enable people to translate their own fluff into mechanics. Let's look at a few different ways of handling this.
2a. One way is the "toolkit system" approach used in systems like HERO/Champions. Systems like these allow you to design your own powers, items, and creatures by giving yo ua language to express abilities in terms of mechanics. For example,
If you want to "build a game model" of a Panzer in the HERO system, you could do that. You would take each element of the Panzer, decide what it can do, and express that as a power. Main gun? Ranged killing attack, Xd6, armor piercing, takes Y rounds to reload, etc. Armor? Physical defense, value Z. Targeting system? Combat Skill Level that gives +W to attacks with the main gun. Then the system would tell you how many game points each of these are worth, so you give the whole tank a "point value" which is the HERO system's counterpart to "character level."
There's only a couple problems with that:
2a.1. Since you have more freedom in making your own powers, there's a lot more ways to abuse the system. (For instance, I figured out a way to make a power in the HERO System that only costs 70 or so character points but can provide the entire party with 1,100 character points' worth of bonuses to their attributes.) So it still requires DM judgement to outlaw abuses.
2a.2. It doesn't technically solve the original problem, which was to have a system that allows you to input a "fluff" description and receive as output a mechanical description. You still have to convert the fluff into mechanics yourself (in the Panzer example, figure out what X, Y, Z, and W are) - the system just gives you maximum variety in the kind of mechanical descriptions you can come up with, so you can make it match the fluff more closely.
On the other hand, the general idea of a system that "allows you to input a "fluff" description and receive as output a mechanical description" seems to me to be infeasible without a lot of DM fiat. For instance, how would such a system work that would allow you to build a tank like the one above? Presumably it would have to have some way of converting a "fluff description" of the armor (X millimeter thick wall of Y material) into a mechanical description (blocks Z points of damage). In order to be able to do this in a general way it seems like you would have to have a complete model of the world's physics, chemistry, biology, etc.
---
2b. Another approach, that tends to be simpler, is the "abstract model." Systems like these completely separate the fluff from the mechanics. An example is the FATE system. In this system there is a set of general rules for handling a combat, with generic actions (attack, attack but do an effect other than damage, defend, recover, use an aspect to enhance one of the above). Players' decisions still have an impact on the combat, and it's still possible to translate actions ("I push the target out of the way") into mechanical descriptions ("Like a regular attack, except that if you hit the target is out of the combat for one round instead of being wounded") So different actions can end up working differently, but again the translation from "fluff" to "mechanics" still involves DM judgement. It's just that there are a lot fewer complicated rules getting in the way.
They would know, because their characters know. They have trained at certain moves and have become quite good at them.
Here's why it's different:
If I was DMing for you, and your Warlord make that action (against a hobgoblin elite or something), I would rule it like this:
slice off his armour, weapon, Str v AC, 1/2[W] and -2 AC until the target can repair his armour.
Now if you said something like, "I come at him with a flurry of blows, none doing much damage, but each one tells me something about how he fights, hoping to pick up a weakness", I might resolve it like this for your Warlord who has Lead the Attack:
I'd also describe the weakness that you've found. The bonus would last until the target didn't have the weakness any longer; this probably means level gain.
In order to do the full 3[W] you'd need to do something extraodinary, exploiting the fluff at the moment for a big smash.
Now if a Fighter without Lead the Attack tried the exact same thing:
Reason being the fighter doesn't know how to communicate as well as the Warlord who has trained in coordinating attacks.
This puts a lot of load on the DM, though.
And this illustrates the problem. It still goes back to a game of "guess the fluff." In this example, if I were playing in your game, I would do the "slice armor" description expecting to get the Lead the Attack effect, but would instead get a much weaker effect. I would only get the full effect if I "guessed" the fluff you wanted.
Basically, there's two possibilities:
1. Players know enough to trigger their powers when they want to,, in which case you've gone back to "powers first."
2. Players don't know enough to trigger their powers when they want to, in which case you have "guess the fluff."
Of course it's possible to have something in between - where (1) applies some of the time, (2) applies some of the time, and some of the time you have enough information to trigger something similar to what you want but not all of it. This "middle ground" could of course be what you want. But it's still a compromise - it's not possible to get the best of both worlds this way. (Unless of course this "guess the fluff" dynamic is what you want.)
Pbartender
First Post
There's another middle ground. It goes something like this:
Make your decision as to what effect, roleplaying-wise you want to happen first. If you have a power can adequately emulate it, then just use it. If not, then you ask the DM... "I want to knock him prone, by using my fancy sword work and foot work to trick him into tripping over a chair." "Okay, make a Dexterity attack vs. his Will defense."
In other words, you first try to match your abilities and powers to what you want to do. If you can't, then you use what you're calling "guess the fluff" as a backup.
Of course, to work really well, you need imaginative players and a flexible DM.
Alex 319, a rules-heavy game like Hero or 3E is not the only alternative to a rules-heavy game like 4E. All it takes to do "situation first" is an attitude open to it -- which means not designing a complex structure to get in the way of it.
That would probably apply to any TSR (or almost any other) RPG of the 1970s-'80s; it is certainly the case with the original D&D game. What WotC has done is create a situation in which one either invests heavily in abstract rules or has little use for the game. Take away the powers and feats, and whatever what's left would resemble, it probably would not pass for 4E. The players' investment in choosing from the menu to define their characters naturally comes to define how they expect to play; they don't want to get "ripped off".
It's a one-two punch of complexity and abstraction, and the "economy" of player power via character builds makes that hard to turn aside. That one should even want to is perhaps not very sensible. It's a fine design for the purposes for which it was designed. So are RuneQuest and Harnmaster; so are Risus and The Pool and FATE. If the shoe doesn't fit, find one that does. A lot of experience convinces me that it's easier to make a fairly simple game complicated in whatever ways one likes than to simplify one that is already very complicated.
That would probably apply to any TSR (or almost any other) RPG of the 1970s-'80s; it is certainly the case with the original D&D game. What WotC has done is create a situation in which one either invests heavily in abstract rules or has little use for the game. Take away the powers and feats, and whatever what's left would resemble, it probably would not pass for 4E. The players' investment in choosing from the menu to define their characters naturally comes to define how they expect to play; they don't want to get "ripped off".
It's a one-two punch of complexity and abstraction, and the "economy" of player power via character builds makes that hard to turn aside. That one should even want to is perhaps not very sensible. It's a fine design for the purposes for which it was designed. So are RuneQuest and Harnmaster; so are Risus and The Pool and FATE. If the shoe doesn't fit, find one that does. A lot of experience convinces me that it's easier to make a fairly simple game complicated in whatever ways one likes than to simplify one that is already very complicated.
tomBitonti
Hero
Hi,
That is not quite correct ... the fluff is available (and is of great interest to lots of folks). Whether or not one cares to look in detail of the fluff is one's decision to make, but the fluff is there.
That's probably not a very good example. At the level of detail of the 4E powers you would have:
Move: Free action: 1/Turn: The car moves forward (you must use this free action)
Accelerate: Move action: At Will: You increase or decrease the cars speed.
Turn: Move action: At Will: You change the direction of movement by up to 1/8 turn.
Let me throw in new ones, to mess this up:
Sidle: Standard Action: Encounter: You use your driving moxie to shift the car to the left by 1/4 of it's movement.
Road Gripper: Standard action: Daily: You use your driving moxie to prevent the car from moving for one turn.
Out of curiosity, do you feel that AD&D combat put 'situation first'?
Lately I've been thinking about the differences between 1e and 4e combat re: immersion and post hoc narration. In 1e combat is more abstract. Rounds are a minute long. You don't roll to resolve individual attacks, your roll to resolve one or more opportunities to do damage occurring during that minute, which is assumed to contain all manner of strikes, feints, and some degree of tactical movement.
A lot of the tactical situation is glossed over. There's no opportunity for the player to react during that minute round. If the DM is good they might include some exciting color commentary describing the action during the round -- but it's pure post hoc narration (and a bad DM might simply rattle off "You hit, the orc hits, you miss"...). It's not so different than a 4e DM describing how a particular use of everyone's favorite fighter power --Come and Get It-- works.
In both systems there's a dissociation between the game mechanics and the in-game events. In 4e it's because there's no description of the mechanisms behind certain powers. In 1e it's because of a time scale that makes precise tactical decisions/descriptions unimportant. Both systems rely heavily on post hoc narration.
