D&D 4E 4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?

[Libramarian]

So, any playstyle that doesn't match yours is badwrongfun? Just because you happen not to like it, doesn't make it "weaksauce". Could it be achieved through freeform? Possibly. But, in freeform, you control the success or failure of the action. In this system, you control the opportunity.

Thus, you keep the "Yahtzee" moment of that great roll, while rejecting the idea that it needs to be completely random.

I think this stuff about narrative awesome is a red herring that is distorting this discussion. It's ideological faff that makes our tastes seem a lot more different than they are.

If what people like about 4e combat is that it allows group narrative input, then logically what they would like even better is just narrating stuff into the scene without any formal rules. Need more structure to keep people from talking over each other? OK, then take turns going clockwise.

Surely the main appeal of 4e combat is the tactical aspect. Less randomness favors tactical play. The more information you have and the more reliable your options are, the more traction you have for tactical decisions. This is true, and a good design principle. This is the fertile ground for reworking the 4e combat system so that it appeals to fans of all editions. I think all D&D players, or at least the vast majority, enjoy tactical play as such. All editions feature it, in different ways.

All editions of D&D feature these two aspects: tactical play, and having the players "work up" to awesomeness as a reward. All editions agree to some extent with the sentiment that a reward earned is sweeter than one given for free. It's a fundamental tenet of D&D gamism.

So let's just drop the narrative aspect of the discussion. All it does is construct two competing narratives of the oldschool hardass who loves suffering and misery vs. newschool insipid player-pandering. It's pointless to compare editions on the basis of "awesome ratio" without considering the whole context of actual play.

While we're at it let's stop talking about DM judgement as if it were an objectively bad thing. It's a tool. It's good for some things, not so good for others. A game can decide reasonably to leave something to DM judgement. It's not necessarily indicative of stupidity or laziness in design.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't know enough about terms like 'narrative game' to really contribute to that part of the conversation. What I do know is that I want mechanics that support the story. 4E's mechanics had too many issues for gamers like myself. Too often the mechanics caused the game to halt while we all tried to figure out a plausible way of explaining what just happened.

I'm not sure how to explain that better. Hmm.... I want to say "I do this" and then find the mechanics that match. I feel 4E puts the mechanics first and then leaves me trying to find a suitable description for what my character just did. Pre-errata monsters provide some of the most stunning examples of this - my favourite whipping dog being the fact you can knock a gelatinous cube prone. It's a nonsentient ooze, and yet you can stun it, daze it, blind it, deafen it, surprise it, and even dominate it.

You're a traditional gamer. Nothing wrong with that. The part where you have to try to create an explanation for a power felt wrong to you, whereas to a narrative gamer, that's the part where a lot of the fun is.

 

[Libramarian]

If I can be blunt about it; I never found combat in the earlier editions to be lacking. 4E expanded combat in ways that I feel were completely unnecessary. Hence my gripe with it being slower. I see powers as a key contributor to that.


I don't know enough about terms like 'narrative game' to really contribute to that part of the conversation. What I do know is that I want mechanics that support the story. 4E's mechanics had too many issues for gamers like myself. Too often the mechanics caused the game to halt while we all tried to figure out a plausible way of explaining what just happened.

I'm not sure how to explain that better. Hmm.... I want to say "I do this" and then find the mechanics that match. I feel 4E puts the mechanics first and then leaves me trying to find a suitable description for what my character just did. Pre-errata monsters provide some of the most stunning examples of this - my favourite whipping dog being the fact you can knock a gelatinous cube prone. It's a nonsentient ooze, and yet you can stun it, daze it, blind it, deafen it, surprise it, and even dominate it.

I'm told that errata eventually fixed those issues, but I'm only using that as an example case. There were plenty of others. Having powers puts you in the mindset that 'these are the things I can do'. Often those things didn't make any sense within the context of the story. I do not find that part of gaming enjoyable. I like the game to make sense first, and then have mechanics that support the logic. This is why I put my faith more in the 'simulationist' camp.

If it's logical that a fighter can perform fancy combat manoeuvers all battle (such as Jet Li tripping over a room full of karate guys) then I want the rules to support that. Equally, if it's logical that the bookish wizard isn't as good at that, I want the rules to reflect that, while still allowing him to try it and get lucky.

Having a fighter with 18 strength push an orc off a cliff is cool, but not really that interesting. Having the weakling wizard try to push an orc off a cliff out of sheer desperation, and succeed, is amazing. It's logical that the wizard can make the attempt. It's even logical that he can succeed, but the mechanics should reflect the likelihood. In 3E and earlier games, this pans out as expected. In 4E, the wizard has a greater chance of success due to adding half level to attack than he would in any other edition. I don't find that logical, yet other players do. It's these differences of opinion that make game design really tricky.

[edit]Uh, I lost track of what I was saying there.
The point is that it's logical for a fighter to push his opponent off a cliff. It's not logical for that same fighter to 'run out' of push powers, and then use other powers that make no use of the terrain just because he has those powers left in his hand. Say he has a push 5 power and uses it, why would he use a 3[W] damage power instead of pushing 5 again?[/edit]


@Eldritch_Lord
Your rant was excellent, and I'd like to summarize:
Page 42 is nice, but it's not a good substitute for fundamental combat rules that should have existed in the first place.

I think your issues are representative of what a lot of people didn't like about 4e.

I mean, knocking a gelatinous cube prone is not just failing to give a "nod" to simulationism. It's giving an obscene gesture to simulationism, really.

 

[TwoSix]

If what people like about 4e combat is that it allows group narrative input, then logically what they would like even better is just narrating stuff into the scene without any formal rules. Need more structure to keep people from talking over each other? OK, then take turns going clockwise.

It doesn't necessarily logically follow; no more than if I like milkshakes more than ice cream, logically I should like plain milk the best of all, it's got even more liquidy goodness!

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think this stuff about narrative awesome is a red herring that is distorting this discussion. It's ideological faff that makes our tastes seem a lot more different than they are.

If what people like about 4e combat is that it allows group narrative input, then logically what they would like even better is just narrating stuff into the scene without any formal rules. Need more structure to keep people from talking over each other? OK, then take turns going clockwise.

Danger, danger, Will Robinson! Extreme logic fail! Core breach in 10, 9 ....

If you don't want to talk about something that you clearly don't understand, no one can make you.

 

[Libramarian]

You're a traditional gamer. Nothing wrong with that. The part where you have to try to create an explanation for a power felt wrong to you, whereas to a narrative gamer, that's the part where a lot of the fun is.

Yeah this opposition is what I would like to dismantle, at least in the context of D&D.

This is how I see the issue, which I (unsurprisingly) think is fairer and more flexible frame:

Tying the mechanics to the fiction is a good thing. Everybody likes it as such.

However, everybody also likes tactical play. Designing tactical scenarios that respect simulationism is more complex and harder than designing tactical scenarios that don't give a whit about it.

Untying the mechanics from the fiction is a tradeoff that can sometimes be worth it, sometimes not.

 

[Libramarian]

It doesn't necessarily logically follow; no more than if I like milkshakes more than ice cream, logically I should like plain milk the best of all, it's got even more liquidy goodness!

Uh. If you like milkshakes more than ice cream because they have more liquidy goodness, then you logically would like milk best of all.

If you don't like milk best of all, then you should ask yourself whether liquidy goodness is really the reason you like milkshakes more than icecream.

This is the analogy to my argument.

 

[TwoSix]

Uh. If you like milkshakes more than ice cream because they have more liquidy goodness, then you logically would like milk best of all.

If you don't like milk best of all, then you should ask yourself whether liquidy goodness is really the reason you like milkshakes more than icecream.

This is the analogy to my argument.

First, I sincerely don't want to beat this analogy to the ground.

But, if I like milkshakes more than ice cream, and the main difference between the two is the degree of liquidity, than I can assume for that case that I find a greater degree of liquidity superior. That does not have to presume that I have the same sort of preferences in a different case.

More importantly, it may be the combinations of several factors as well as the degree to which those factors are present that makes any choice my preferred one. For 4e, it's the combination of rigorous tactical play, the balance between high-level choices (class and race), and ability to take narrative liberties that all combine to make it my preferred choice, over other preferences that may have any one of those preferences to even greater degree.

 

[Zustiur]

You are oriented more towards process instead of results.

Thanks. I knew there must be a simple way of saying it.

Tying the mechanics to the fiction is a good thing. Everybody likes it as such.

However, everybody also likes tactical play. Designing tactical scenarios that respect simulationism is more complex and harder than designing tactical scenarios that don't give a whit about it.

Untying the mechanics from the fiction is a tradeoff that can sometimes be worth it, sometimes not.

Well put. I do in fact enjoy the tactical nature, but I don't greatly need that in my DND. I used to play Warhammer 40k for my tactical and strategic fix.
I'd be happy to retain the tactical variety of 4E, so long as it wasn't at the cost of simulationism.

I think these two quotes go together:

I think your issues are representative of what a lot of people didn't like about 4e.

I mean, knocking a gelatinous cube prone is not just failing to give a "nod" to simulationism. It's giving an obscene gesture to simulationism, really.

You're a traditional gamer. Nothing wrong with that. The part where you have to try to create an explanation for a power felt wrong to you, whereas to a narrative gamer, that's the part where a lot of the fun is.

Not meaning to blow my own trumpet here, but if I'm representative of the people who did not like 4E, and I'm a 'traditional gamer', then it stands to reason that traditional gamers are not narrative gamers. Therefore if 5E is trying to recapture traditional gamers, then the game system must avoid the mechanics that cause traditional gamers to reject the system.

Which is to say; 5E must avoid powers (as they currently stand).

That begs the question; What system should we adopt instead?
To be successful in it's mission statement, 5E must
a) be representative of 'DND feel'
b) have mechanics which are as good, or better than previous incarnations of the same mechanic.

If powers upset so many people in WOTC's target audience, then they should not be our starting point.

Given the lack of information on combat manoeuvers in 2E and prior editions, that points us to 3E. Yet 3E was acknowledged as being overly complex (a lot of the time), and of having a binary switch between a manoeuver being worthless and being over powered (with feat specialisation).

So, in my mind, the target is:
* Something that approaches 3E's coverage of combat manoeuvers
* While remaining simpler
* And ensuring that these special attacks are neither worthless nor over powered (i.e. that they remain balanced options throughout the life of the game)

I have a number of ideas on that, and will probably expand on them in a future post.

 

[TwoSix]

Not meaning to blow my own trumpet here, but if I'm representative of the people who did not like 4E, and I'm a 'traditional gamer', then it stands to reason that traditional gamers are not narrative gamers. Therefore if 5E is trying to recapture traditional gamers, then the game system must avoid the mechanics that cause traditional gamers to reject the system.

I agree that "traditional" gamers aren't narrative gamers, in general. (Although I certainly think that one can LIKE both styles. I know I enjoy both traditional D&D, 4e, and other narrative style games like FATE and Burning Wheel).

I do think the more progressively narrative stuff in 4e, such as pre-errata Come and Get It, Skill Challenges, and martial healing (although I don't think that's a strictly narrative mechanic issue) will almost certainly be excised in 5e.