4E and Player Trust

[AnthonyRoberson]

I am still relatively new to 4E and it struck me while running a game on Sunday that 4E seems to require a great deal more player trust than previous editions. Players just have so many abilities, even at low level, that it's impossible for the DM to keep up with which ones have been used. I am not implying that this is a bug, just something I have noted. Has this been anyone else's experience? Has it caused any issues in your games?

 

[jasonbostwick]

This hasn't really been an issue in my games.

Beyond the general trust I have for my players anyway (I only check their character sheets if something seems really weird; they do all the treasure and XP accounting), we use power cards so there is very little confusion as to what powers have been expended.

The players play with all their power cards face-up on the table, and flip them when they have used them. It also helps me keep track of how the fight is progressing, and lets me switch things up a bit if the party is running out of powers and the fight looks like it might enter grindspace/be a TPK.

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

It absolutely requires more trust. As I said in another thread, the game was not designed with the intention that you would be able to memorize the full capabilities of your party.

And honestly, if you can't trust your players to not cheat about their capabilities, then you have much, much bigger problems than trying to remember their powers.

 

[billd91]

I don't really think so. Any spellcaster player has to be trusted that he's marking off the spells he's casting. This just distributes the trust from a lot in a few players to a bit over all of them. I think it's a wash.

 

[Chainsaw]

And honestly, if you can't trust your players to not cheat about their capabilities, then you have much, much bigger problems than trying to remember their powers.

Agreed. We have a LFR group that games at one of the player's houses. Usually we have two groups of 4-6 people (usually at least one first-timer mixed in) with rotating DMs from week to week. We're all in our thirties.
Our DMs trust us to modify our rolls accurately and fairly so that we can all have a good time. I think if someone found out another person was cheating (not just making an honest mistake), they'd first say.. "Whaaaa? How old are you??" and then we'd probably all ask the guy to leave - not because we're HARDCORE or anything, but because we'd be worried the guy might steal something from the host's house.

Based on what I said above, you can see why level of trust by edition is really a non-issue for us, I think - if we don't trust each other, we're probably not even going to play.

Edit: Added second paragraph.

 

[jasonbostwick]

Agreed, its a wash - in previous editions there were a number of 'trust' steps involved with spellcasters.

If you didn't trust your player, you would have to keep track of what spells they knew, what spells they had prepared that day, what spells they had used, and the duration remaining on the buff spells they had used.

The sheer number of spell slots made this just as much of an effort as it is to track the powers expended by the whole party.

 

[FalcWP]

In some of my 3.5 games, I played with folks who forgot they'd used all their 3rd level spells, forgot that they didn't actually prepare a fireball, forgot how much damage fireball did or how many squares it'd hit, forgot that they didn't yet *have* 3rd level spells, forgot how many feats and skill points they had or how they worked, forgot to mark off the potions and wands they'd used, forgot how many times he'd raged, forgot how much of his Lay on Hands he'd used already, forgot to mark off hit points and ability damage, forgot how trip, grapple, and sunder worked, forgot that a '2' and a '20 on a d20 are not the same thing... (obviously, I'm using 'forgot' rather loosely... as did those players)

If a player is going to cheat, he'll cheat in any edition. Personally, I think 4E might be a bit easier - I could just make a quick table for my players and list the number of dailies and healing surges they have used, and tally them up. It wouldn't be exact once they got a few dailies to choose from, but it'd pinpoint anyone who was using way too many, at least. I could even make a quick Excel spreadsheet listing each of their daily and encounter powers, plus their number of healing surges, and mark down when each was used, then erase it when they've rested.

Luckily, I don't have to - I trust all of my current players.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Has this been anyone else's experience?

No more than keeping track of HP or whether you've used that potion from three adventures ago.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm finding that there is a lot more accidental misremembering of things because of the complex nature of powers - recent examples have been getting the close burst radius of fire shroud wrong, getting the action type of a power wrong, not realising that ability isn't added to the damage roll on sure strike, thinking that a power was 'until end of your next turn' when it was actually 'until start of your next turn' (or vice versa).

I'm up on these things more than the others, and often get people to double-check stuff, and get it corrected.

This isn't people cheating, it is honest mistakes in a more complex system.

Cheers

 

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Power cards are a good solution to this. You can print 'em out from the D&D Character Builder.