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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5871519" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'm fairly sure I understand your point of view. I just don't share it - or, rather, I see it as one viable way to play some RPGs, but not the only way. And not the way that I happen to be running my current, 4e, game.</p><p></p><p>Here's where we part ways. The latter cases are not always scorned.</p><p></p><p>First, your example is ambiguous, between the PCs or the players becoming more cautious. In some games, there is no easy way to distinguish this - if the PCs are already fully bedecked with their armour and weapons, for example, and there are no buffs they can utilise, and the game has passive Perception mechanics, than there may be no mechanical, ingame way whereby the PCs can be more cautious. But if the players fail some Perception checks, and as a result start playing more cautiously - paying more attention to my descriptions, trying harder to puzzle out what excatly is going on, thinking harder about where some important thing or person might be hidden, etc - then I'm not necessarily going to scorn that at all! That might be part of the <em>point</em> in getting them to roll a Perception check in the first place.</p><p></p><p>And, when it is the <em>GM</em> who is playing an NPC/monster in a certain way based on metagame considerations (and that is what we are talking about in the context of fighters' marking ability), there is even less reason, in my view, to regard it as scorn-worthy.</p><p></p><p>I'm not entirely sure what you mean by fiction and metagame "contradictin" - but I just don't regard it as true that metagame-driven fiction is necessarily unsatisfying.</p><p></p><p>When my players pull a "disguise ourselves magically and make the dwarf fighter, who has zero chance of pulling off a Bluff check, be the "prisoner" we are taking to the BBEG", the metagame allusion to Star Wars is obvious. But that doesn't pull us out of the story. It's part of the (corny) charm.</p><p></p><p>When the imp who pestered the party 3 levels ago suddenly turns up again as the familiar of a new NPC cleric enemy, in the course of the biggest battle the party has fought to date - defending a village against a squad of a dozen hobgoblins with a behemoth, plus bugbear "special forces", plus tiefling spellcasters, etc - the contrivance is, at a certain level, obvious. The fight is a "big thing", and the surpise attack from the invisible imp just adds to its "bigness". But, at least for my group, it doesn't pull them out of the story. It reinforces the story.</p><p></p><p>And then occasionally you get surprises. When they went hunting for the missing niece of the baron, whom they knew to be the fiance of a Vecna worshipper they'd killed, and after tracking her to an old necromancer's tower, I was sure that they would expect her to be at the top of the tower trying to revive a trapped vampire. But when they got to the top, and found the <em>niece</em> as the key villain, they were genuinely surprised - they had been expecting to rescue her from necromancers. So sometimes the metagame contrivance, rather than producing an "of course" response, can catch them by surprise.</p><p></p><p>But these are all metagame contrivances. Admittedly these examples pertain more to encounter design than action resolution, but I think the considerations are much the same.</p><p></p><p>Well, speak for yourself! The <em>point</em> of marking mechanics - as I noted above - is to produce a fiction in which the fighter is at the centre of the action. And I have no trouble becoming absorbed by that fiction.</p><p></p><p>PC romance provides a different example. NPCs don't fall in love with PCs through any emotional process - as Hussar said, they are just constructs. NPCs fall in love with PCs because the players at the table decide that that is a satisfying way for the fiction to unfold. It's metagame-led fiction, but not, therefore, inherently unsatisfying. </p><p></p><p>The reason the things you describe as bad are bad - to the extent that they are - is, in my view, because they make for crappy play. The metagaming is neither here nor there.</p><p></p><p>At the risk of repeating myself, I disagree.</p><p></p><p>Here's another example from 4e. Paladins have a power called Valiant Strike. It gives a +1 to hit per adjacent foe. Why is it called Valiant Strike? Because it makes it more likely that the paladin (in order to get the bonus) will hurl him/herself into groups of foes. The power, due to its metagame consequences, will bring it about that the paladin is played as valiant.</p><p></p><p>I think that's clever game design. You may well disagree - and fair enough, not everyone like metagame-heavy mechanics - but to say that it is bad metagaming is just to beg the question in favour of your preferences and against mine.</p><p></p><p>As I said in my previous post, I have many actual play threads on these boards. I'm curious to learn where my casualness about the metagame operation of marking is hurting the narrative! I haven't noticed it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5871519, member: 42582"] I'm fairly sure I understand your point of view. I just don't share it - or, rather, I see it as one viable way to play some RPGs, but not the only way. And not the way that I happen to be running my current, 4e, game. Here's where we part ways. The latter cases are not always scorned. First, your example is ambiguous, between the PCs or the players becoming more cautious. In some games, there is no easy way to distinguish this - if the PCs are already fully bedecked with their armour and weapons, for example, and there are no buffs they can utilise, and the game has passive Perception mechanics, than there may be no mechanical, ingame way whereby the PCs can be more cautious. But if the players fail some Perception checks, and as a result start playing more cautiously - paying more attention to my descriptions, trying harder to puzzle out what excatly is going on, thinking harder about where some important thing or person might be hidden, etc - then I'm not necessarily going to scorn that at all! That might be part of the [I]point[/I] in getting them to roll a Perception check in the first place. And, when it is the [I]GM[/I] who is playing an NPC/monster in a certain way based on metagame considerations (and that is what we are talking about in the context of fighters' marking ability), there is even less reason, in my view, to regard it as scorn-worthy. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by fiction and metagame "contradictin" - but I just don't regard it as true that metagame-driven fiction is necessarily unsatisfying. When my players pull a "disguise ourselves magically and make the dwarf fighter, who has zero chance of pulling off a Bluff check, be the "prisoner" we are taking to the BBEG", the metagame allusion to Star Wars is obvious. But that doesn't pull us out of the story. It's part of the (corny) charm. When the imp who pestered the party 3 levels ago suddenly turns up again as the familiar of a new NPC cleric enemy, in the course of the biggest battle the party has fought to date - defending a village against a squad of a dozen hobgoblins with a behemoth, plus bugbear "special forces", plus tiefling spellcasters, etc - the contrivance is, at a certain level, obvious. The fight is a "big thing", and the surpise attack from the invisible imp just adds to its "bigness". But, at least for my group, it doesn't pull them out of the story. It reinforces the story. And then occasionally you get surprises. When they went hunting for the missing niece of the baron, whom they knew to be the fiance of a Vecna worshipper they'd killed, and after tracking her to an old necromancer's tower, I was sure that they would expect her to be at the top of the tower trying to revive a trapped vampire. But when they got to the top, and found the [I]niece[/I] as the key villain, they were genuinely surprised - they had been expecting to rescue her from necromancers. So sometimes the metagame contrivance, rather than producing an "of course" response, can catch them by surprise. But these are all metagame contrivances. Admittedly these examples pertain more to encounter design than action resolution, but I think the considerations are much the same. Well, speak for yourself! The [I]point[/I] of marking mechanics - as I noted above - is to produce a fiction in which the fighter is at the centre of the action. And I have no trouble becoming absorbed by that fiction. PC romance provides a different example. NPCs don't fall in love with PCs through any emotional process - as Hussar said, they are just constructs. NPCs fall in love with PCs because the players at the table decide that that is a satisfying way for the fiction to unfold. It's metagame-led fiction, but not, therefore, inherently unsatisfying. The reason the things you describe as bad are bad - to the extent that they are - is, in my view, because they make for crappy play. The metagaming is neither here nor there. At the risk of repeating myself, I disagree. Here's another example from 4e. Paladins have a power called Valiant Strike. It gives a +1 to hit per adjacent foe. Why is it called Valiant Strike? Because it makes it more likely that the paladin (in order to get the bonus) will hurl him/herself into groups of foes. The power, due to its metagame consequences, will bring it about that the paladin is played as valiant. I think that's clever game design. You may well disagree - and fair enough, not everyone like metagame-heavy mechanics - but to say that it is bad metagaming is just to beg the question in favour of your preferences and against mine. As I said in my previous post, I have many actual play threads on these boards. I'm curious to learn where my casualness about the metagame operation of marking is hurting the narrative! I haven't noticed it. [/QUOTE]
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4E combat and powers: How to keep the baby and not the bathwater?
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