D&D 4E 4e and reality

[pemerton]

My view is that 4E is "high-concept" simulationism. "You play a Hero in a land filled with darkness and monsters; as a Hero, how will you react?" (Specifically, a priority placed on System + Situation.)

As usual, you may be right. At least, this may be how the game has been written to be played.

I think the 4e rulebooks - like other D&D books before them - tend to underspecify the distribution of authority between players and GM over issues like PC backstory, world creation, etc. There are things that push both ways - the PC sketches in the race descriptions in PHB1, for example, tend to suggest that players have a lot of freedom to describe the gameworld and their PC's place in it, whereas the DMG and especially the published adventures tend to assume that the GM has the authority to set "plot hooks" that are more-or-less independent of the PCs and the players.

I think the former tendency is what enables the game to be read in a narrativist light, while the latter suggests high concept simulationism.

In books like The Plane Above or Underdark the conflicting tendencies can be identified being parcelled out between sections of the work. The descriptions of the mythology and the gods' realms tends to suggest backstory that the players can choose to engage with as they see fit - do they travel into deep myth to stop Bane killing Tuern, for example, thereby putting an end to some earthly dictatorship, even at the risk of this letting the Primordials win the Dawn War? Wheras the descriptions of the Outer Isles in The Plane Above, or of many of the locations in Underdark or The Plane Below, seem designed to support the sort of exploration of situation that you describe.

As far as exploration of system is concerned - given the nature of the system, I think that gamist play is an ever-present emergent possibility once exploration of the system becomes a serious priority. Both character build and combat - the two systems rich enough to support serious exploration - clearly admit of winning and losing moves.

I think that focusing too much on exploration of the system is likely to lead to the sort of divorce you talk about between fiction and play - which takes me to your next points!

My own view on the "realism / verisimilitude / believability" issue in 4E is that it's not really about any of those things. To use Forge terms, it's about Exploration; 4E is light on Colour. All that means (assuming I'm using the jargon correctly) is that the details of the imagined content doesn't have much of an effect on how the game plays out.

We've all played us some 4E and we're familiar with the mechanics. We can see how the way the fictional situation isn't as important as it is in Sorcerer

<snip>

Let's say that two characters are flanking a gelatinous cube. Another character, perpendicular to these two, fires a scorching ray at the cube. I describe the cube as lurching to one side, stretching out, one thin strand connecting two bulky masses.

Now most of its mass is on one side and it's revealed a weak point. What happens if I say that I'm going to cut that thin strand with my sword? If I'm a Rogue, do I get Sneak Attack bonuses to my damage? If I want to trip it, does that make it easier? Can I flank it now?

It's the same thing with 4E or my experience with Freemarket - the rules say that an ooze can't be flanked or sneak attacked or critically hit. So it can't.

If the same situation occurred in Sorcerer, the DM might award me some bonus dice for excellent tactics (if I cut at the thin strand). Thus reflecting the fictional situation, emphasizing it, no house ruling required.

I think there are two issues here. First, what parts of the fiction are brought into play? As I've posted before, I think that the 4e combat rules cannot but bring the fictional geography into play. In a game in which fantastic combat is a good chunk of play, that can be a good thing.

But the second issue - which I think comes closer to what you are concerned with - is the way in which skill checks, skill challenges and improvised actions more generally are adjudicated. In the gelatinous cube example you give, it should be open to a player to make a Dungeoneering check (or Nature check - what skill covers monster knowledge for oozes?) in order to get bonus damage or a bonus to hit, in much the same way that p 42 of the DMG suggests that it is open to a player, upon hearing the description of a hanging chandelier, to make an Acrobatics check to get bonus damage or a bonus to hit.

I think that the game has, in principle, the resources to handle this, but doesn't deploy them clearly. I see two problems, and I'm sure there are others. The first is the reluctance to elaborate on the interaction between skill checks/challenges and combat, which is reinforced by the frequent description of skill challenges as "non-combat encounters". The second is, even within the framework of skill challenges, the failure to clearly set out the way in which the fiction is to unfold as the challenge progresses, with the unfolding fiction itself determining the range of options and difficulties for subsequent checks within the challenge. I know from experience that, when you run a skill challenge in this way, the players will pay attention to, and tailor their responses to, the fiction.

 

[lutecius]

Hang on though. Aren't simulation games almost universally rules heavy? If you want to have a game where the mechanics represent a believable reality (which is how I understand simulation to work), doesn't that require a fairly heavy ruleset?

I'm trying to think of a truly sim style game that is not rules heavy. GURPS, HERO, Pirates and Privateers (which actually requires the use of square roots to calculate encumberance), and all the other sim-games that I can think of all have fairly heavy duty rules sets.

Can you point me in the direction of a rules light simulationist game?

many simulationist games happen to be rules heavy, especially when they try to cover many genres, like gurps. but a simulationist game doesn't necessarily need complex, granular rules for everything in the game world, just rules that represent an in-game reality. they can be broad approximations or only focus on some aspects of the world, like Pendragon, and still be simulationist.

Personally I feel the game started as pretty far removed from simulationism, and only recently moved in that direction. I actually think 4e swings it back closer to where it started, but still not as far away from simulationist as it was back in the day.

That's my opinion at least.

I agree to a point. the game mostly moved toward simulationism (and imo improved) with 3e. now whether 4e is still more simulationist than ad&d (I haven't played older editions) is debatable.

 

[Dausuul]

Exactly - which is why the game should be run as makes sense and not as the rules say.

Unfortunately, this isn't true at all. The rules are presented as more sacrosant in 4e. When various conditions don't make sense you're encouraged to follow the rules not common sense. When in previous editions it was considered normal that odd "powers" might not work as expected (say, trip on a gelatinous cube) or at all, now players are encouraged to feel entitled for their powers to work as written.

Can you quote the rulebooks on this anywhere? This strikes me as one of those memes that's sprung up around 4E without a lot of basis. People talk about 4E as enshrining the rules over common sense, but I'm not aware of where this actually happens.

In general, my approach to the rules is this: If I as the DM can narrate what's going on without resorting to handwaving, then the rules are doing their job. If I set out to describe what the rules are doing and find myself at a loss, that's when I invoke Rule Zero and say, "Sorry, it doesn't work that way." If a particular game element (monster, power, feat, magic item, et cetera) frequently calls upon me to exercise Rule Zero, I excise it from the game.

 

[AllisterH]

Ok..I'm confused.

We've been discussing whether or not 4e is simulationist but again, shouldn't we ask "what are we trying to simulate?"?

My understanding of AD&D has always been that we were supposed to simulate Beowulf, Hercules and the other fanciful "martial" heroes.

People who could split a man in two with one stroke, can change the course of rivers and do al of this BEFORE breakfast...

So my questionis...what is AD&D martial characters supposed to be simulating?

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Like the groans and general eye rolling that occur whenever someone uses a poison power - just due to how prevalent the immunity is they're just about worthless.

Instead of immunity, how about poison-immune critters dealing reflexive area damage as they void their bodies of incoming poison damage; or they inflict extra poison damage when PCs hit them because the poison can't enter their body (it's made of stone or metal); or the poison enhances their own attacks since their nonexistent metabolism prevents it from ever leaving the body.

 

[BenBrown]

Ok..I'm confused.

We've been discussing whether or not 4e is simulationist but again, shouldn't we ask "what are we trying to simulate?"?

My understanding of AD&D has always been that we were supposed to simulate Beowulf, Hercules and the other fanciful "martial" heroes.

People who could split a man in two with one stroke, can change the course of rivers and do al of this BEFORE breakfast...

So my questionis...what is AD&D martial characters supposed to be simulating?

This has been an issue with D&D since day one. It's trying to simulate a bunch of mutually incompatible things at once. It's trying to simulate the gritty sword and sorcery of Robert E. Howard, the witty weirdness of Jack Vance, the epic heroism of J.R.R. Tolkien and a dozen other things at the same time. Sometimes they work together, sometimes they don't. What developed was a synthesis--a completely new thing, a new subgenre that in turn influenced other writers.

Since the at latest the end of the 1980s, D&D has mostly been trying to simulate D&D.

 

[lutecius]

Ok..I'm confused.

We've been discussing whether or not 4e is simulationist but again, shouldn't we ask "what are we trying to simulate?"?

My understanding of AD&D has always been that we were supposed to simulate Beowulf, Hercules and the other fanciful "martial" heroes.

People who could split a man in two with one stroke, can change the course of rivers and do al of this BEFORE breakfast...

So my questionis...what is AD&D martial characters supposed to be simulating?

yeah, there were sidebars about possible inspirations for each class in the AD&D2 players handbook. that included legendary heroes... as well as historical figures and gods (Diana was mentioned for rangers)

but at the end of the day, the PCs could only do what the rules said they could do. no more, no less. I haven't met one player who expected his low level fighter to simulate Heracles (a Str 25 demigod in the books) or heroes with conspicuously supernatural powers.

past a certain level, I could see martial characters catching arrows in mid-flight and doing somersaults xena-style or having Awesome Grabbing powers, even.
but awesomeness that only happens in corner cases like swarms, with no extra effect on most opponents, is rather counterintuitive and not that awesome.

the main reason is it wasn't meant to simulate legendary awesomeness in the first place. it's just an odd side effect of the rules (like the so-called narrative control given to players, imo)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't see why it's not also the province of the players - especially in a game that emphasises player control over PC build to the extent that 4e dos.

Player control over PC build is a totally different issue from narrative coherency. Not only that but if you put the players at least partly in charge of narrative then you've just shifted the responsibility for that coherency on them. The grabby fighter grabbing the swarm is still a narrative problem. Except now the people trying to solve it aren't the arbiters of the rules, so the solution is not even in their sphere. This is why ultimately the DM is the 'editor' of reality. Someone needs it and you can't always count on the players to be able to handle that role collectively.

I disagree with this. If playing the game by the rules doesn't produce a good game with a strong story then something is wrong with the rules. (For example, maybe they are overly simulationist relative to the story desires of those at the table, or perhaps not simulationist enough relative to the desires of those at the table to have no game/metagame distinction.)

No system is perfect all of the time. Basically what you're saying is something like "Gosh, grabbing just isn't realistic in 4e, if that bothers you then ditch the whole thing and go play 7th Sea". Yeah, right... I will say it ONE MORE TIME though obviously it hasn't sunk in the last 3 times, the issues between fluff and rules are VERY SMALL in 4e. If we were talking about a gigantic gulf between the needs and desires of the players and the rules then "switch to a different system" makes sense. When we're talking about 3-4 obscure corner cases that each come up once or twice in a whole 2-3 year long campaign? Sorry, the rules actually CAN bend that much to the needs of the players.

And this is quite tangential to the role of the GM, at least in my view. In standard D&D play the GM's role is to provide adversity for the PCs - run NPCs and monsters, handle the backstory, etc. In doing this the GM has to exercise a sort of discretion that is not part of a CRPG. But I don't see that this has anything to do with suspending the rules.

Here is an interesting blog on this by Vincent Baker that I was reading recently.

This fits with my experience too.

Again, you make FAR too much of this. I'm entirely mystified by how one could conclude that rigid adherence to the mechanics of the game is a principle that comes out of that blog post. Actually it misses the point because it is far too general. Establishing player resources is fine and all, but what we're talking about here are minor details of when and how those resources can be deployed in a very specific situation that the rules are silent on.

 

[CovertOps]

Not only that but 1st level heroes aren't YET mythic. Sure, you want your level 25 bard to make stones refuse to hit him that's great. At level 1? I think there needs to be a sense of progression here. Epic tier is a different beast from heroic tier. The sense of progression from one to the other is a big part of the game. Heck mechanically there really isn't THAT much difference between tiers. It is all about the way the characters progress and how the world they live in works differently for the epic mythical hero than it does for his level 1 heroic tier incarnation.

So Hercules was never level 1....ever? I think I like the latest Disney cartoon version of "Hercules" where he's training with the satyr to represent what he would look like at level 1. He's unskilled, but the raw power is there.

The way this kind of progression works out is going to feel a bit different for a wizard than a fighter but in both cases they probably have to climb up the hill at level 1 to get the archer and at level 30 they may well be able to pick up the hill and knock him down.

Under 4e I would question this presumption. I am more of the opinion that this type of "magic" is what is reserved for "Rituals". The difference is more like...the level 1 guy has to walk/run up the hill and the level 30 guy hops on his flying carpet or his Dragon mount.

I think maybe people are missing the point. You can have both a sense of a coherent world that works by rules AND all the craziness you want. This isn't about putting a hammer down on this that or the other character for arbitrary reasons. This is about being able to portray a living world with depth and some degree of consistency that isn't based in game rules but in how the WORLD works, which is the province of the DM. Rules will ALWAYS be secondary in that equation. They are a convenience. You can rail against the unfairness of your grabby fighter having problems with a swarm but really I can assure you in our group at least you'd get zero sympathy on that score from the other players.

This whole issue is all about DM fiat vs. the rules and the social contract with the players. If a power says that the character can do X then he should be allowed to do X 99+% of the time. If you want to make a single monster immune to X then you are on the right path. If you are making an entire "class" (swarm in this case) of critters that are immune to X then you are effectively making builds that rely on X less powerful and in the worst cases downright worthless in some circumstances. What it really comes down to is when have you crossed that line into the (to use the 3e analogy) "I'm a construct/undead/??? so I'm immune to your sneak attack Mr. Rogue. Feel free to go watch TV till this fight is over."

If I want rules that are rigidly adhered to no matter how lame the story turns out as a result I can boot up pretty much any old CRPG or go play WoW. This is D&D, the whole point is that world is brought to life around you. Any argument that misses that is missing the whole point of TT RPGs.

You're conveniently playing up the down side of a CRPG while ignoring the down side of table top play. DM fiat is both good AND bad and to ignore the bad is like putting blinders on.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So Hercules was never level 1....ever?

He did strangle a pair of serpents in his crib. So he may not have been level 1 for long...

Really, D&D level gaining bit is more to engage the player than to model anything. Yes, heroes often become more powerful (or at least confident) as they progress through their story arc, particularly in modern literature, but not generally to the degree of the gulf in power that separates a level 1 from a level 20 D&D character.

I don't think the play of D&D across levels is meant to model anything, but, rather, is meant to be engaging and interesting to the player. The things his player can do, posses, or encounter, though, are drawn heavily from a wide variety of sources, including heroic myth, legend, literature, and film that features basically 'martial' heroes who do extraordinary, superhuman things, or otherwise face and overcome challenges that should be far beyond RL human ability.