D&D 4E 4e: Death of the Bildungsroman

[hong]

Most of the changes I have seen previewed and proposed are exactly of this kind. Protecting the characters from the DM. Not only will the new edition fail to provide any kind of protection from the DM that is intent on killing off characters, it will encourage that very behaviour from newer DMs, because they will be even more strictly 'following the rules'.

This "protect the characters from killer DMs by having killer rules" approach to game design, it is interesting. Clearly the safest way to play is by having 1 hit point, which will deter DMs so much that they will never inflict any injury on the characters.

 

[Kishin]

Yup. He's not going to get it. It's too bad for folks who feel the same way as he does, but it's not going to change. So at least he has an easy workaround if he decides that house rules are better than being unhappy about the starting power level.

This is the internet. We don't light candles here; We just vociferously curse the darkness en masse until our throats are too raw to continue.

 

[hong]

Fools, cursing the darkness when they could be attacking the darkness!

 

[Hussar]

Forgot the GNS terms if you don't like them, the important thing you describe here is the "what if"/open-ended playstyle of your players.

You can force them to quit it by playing 4E where magic is much more codified than in 2E for instance, but IMHO a better solution would be to make them understand the problems of this playstyle in general.

I disagree. I see no problem with this play style at all. It makes a fair degree of sense that if a character is given something, he or she will attempt to use it as broadly as possible.

Telling the player, "No sorry, you can't do that because it's going to break the game" is poor design. To me, this is why I stopped playing OWoD. The system was just ridiculously easy to break. Pump all your points into wealth and all problems can be solved with judicious amounts of cash.

Ok, maybe that's taking it a bit far, but, you get my point. Give people something that they can use and it is only reasonable that they are going to use it. That's why magic in the game and magic in a novel work so differently. Harry Potter isn't using his Invisibility cloak to sneak into the girl's showers for a bit of a peep show because J.K. Rowlings never writes that into the story.

Give a real 15 year old boy an invisibility cloak and see what happens.

Game systems require a fair degree of robustness in order to mitigate this effect.

So, the DM didn't ignore the crit after they saw the monsters were a bit overpowered for your party?

In other words, the DM in question seems more interested in applying the rules evenly than making sure people were having fun. Again, not a problem with the rules, just their application.

Easier than trying to balance 0-level class abilities would be a 'no crits for monsters' ruling until the party was around 3rd level or so. Similarly, arrows only do 1hp each until the party is a bit stronger.

I'm still not seeing a problem with the rules themselves, just with the DMs, and sometimes players that don't want to retreat.

There are times when four ogres means 'run', not 'bonus XP'.

Like others here, I don't use the DM's screen of cheat. All my die rolls are 100% in the open. To many fudging=cheating. But, saying that you should simply cheat in order to facilitate rules seems very strange to me.

 

[marune]

I disagree. I see no problem with this play style at all. It makes a fair degree of sense that if a character is given something, he or she will attempt to use it as broadly as possible.

That depends on what is the goal of the game.

Exploring what-if scenarios is a recognized one, but others (more interesting IMO) exist.

For example, if as a player my goal is that the instance of play produces a story that could be found in WoTC novels these day, I won't do cheezy things like we got in the 2E era.

Telling the player, "No sorry, you can't do that because it's going to break the game" is poor design. To me, this is why I stopped playing OWoD. The system was just ridiculously easy to break. Pump all your points into wealth and all problems can be solved with judicious amounts of cash.

Sorry for G/N/S terms, but damn it, if you play a genre/theme-simulatist RPG like WoD, don't go against the genre/theme at the first opportunity !

Spielberg didn't use modern FX in Indy4 for a reason.

Ok, maybe that's taking it a bit far, but, you get my point. Give people something that they can use and it is only reasonable that they are going to use it. That's why magic in the game and magic in a novel work so differently. Harry Potter isn't using his Invisibility cloak to sneak into the girl's showers for a bit of a peep show because J.K. Rowlings never writes that into the story.

Give a real 15 year old boy an invisibility cloak and see what happens.

Game systems require a fair degree of robustness in order to mitigate this effect.

D&D-style "roleplaying" restrictions are crap.

However, if none of the others around the tables want to go in that direction (Harry as a pervert), the player proposing it should backtrack.

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

From the literary sources that I have read, the concept of weakness of a beginning character was also paired with ignorance of "the ways of the world." This ignorance was present for Bilbo and Frodo, for Luke Skywalker, for Rand al'Thor and Co., and many others. The loss of this innocence parallels the readers'/players' innocence. They are ill equipped materially, intellectually, and experientially. The way I would model this would be twofold.

First, the campaign would have to be completely home brewed, with most of the tropes of fantasy altered. This would allow the player to grow with the character, at least in their knowledge of the world. No cut and paste campaigns or the effect would be somewhat lost. I like this effect, but it is hard to achieve, and may even be completely unsatisfactory to many players. The flight from the Shire or the flight from the Two Rivers would likely be very booring for a game session. Could be done though.

Second, the powers thing is only a problem if you let it be. From the perspective of creating a narrative, which in essence is what is important to the OP, the description is what is important for powers. The non-Martial powers would be harder to hand wave than the Martial powers, but the multiclass and retraining rules could allow you to play 1st level martial characters that progress to become high level arcane or divine characters.

I would suggest that this is exactly what happens to the characters in the Wheel of Time. Most would probably start as rangers or rogues, with little for equipment and no knowledge of the world outside of the Two Rivers, but they would later multiclass and retrain to their near godlike later selves.

So to easily get you not-quite-definitially-correct bildungsroman campaign, start by coming up with all new world fluff, stuff that none of the players knows and departs from cliched fantasy tropes. Refluff a lot of the stuff in the PHB and MM. Start all characters as human martial characters with little to no material resources. Make their early competition completely outmatch them, but make sure that they know that this is the goal so they don't get mad at you when they forget to run. Have this go on for a while until they get the hang of some of the new fluff. Then, let a little bit more fluff and some of the more zotty powers leak out and become available to the characters. Leak powers/fluff to taste. This option is only advisable if you have players open to surprises in the campaign theme, else the player/audience effect can be maddening. Pemerton sort of hit on this. De-power the player, give limited options, and create the feeling of "noob to this world" for the players. This seems to be the "illusionist narrativist" type of game. DM creates story, players are audience.

While this approach may take a little more work from worldbuilding stance, it would require very little crunch modification. The crunch should all be there in the beginning core. The characters retain some of the protagonism that is necessary for any hero , whether farm boy or John McLane (they don't die), and they will feel more everyman than any 0th level elf/dwarf/dragonborn. I think that this trope can be easily represented in 4e, it just takes a shift to the perspective that this type of narrative style campaign requires a more narrativist approach to gaming than simulationist style gaming, even if this approach really is more railroady/illusionist narritive. Unless you don't mind deprotagonized PCs with much PC death. In that case, I would suggest just going with Henry's approach. He sounds like he does this style well.

P.S.- I am not completely sure I am using all these GNS terms completely accurately. I think that I have conveyed the right meaning though. If I need to edit or clarify I will.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry for G/N/S terms, but damn it, if you play a genre/theme-simulatist RPG like WoD, don't go against the genre/theme at the first opportunity !

Spielberg didn't use modern FX in Indy4 for a reason.

Heh, I played OWoD like it was D&D. Worse, I played it like 2e D&D. Not the way to go.

But, D&D has never been a genre simulationist game. Abusing the rules has been a tried and true tradition.

 

[Digital M@]

Those weak ass characters in books almost are always escorted, helped, mentored or protected by powerful characters. D&D would be quite dull if some 10th + lvl NPC's hung around saving the PC's all of the time. Literature never translates well to games, it is why Campaign settings based on popular fiction do not last and are not supported in the long term. Those worlds have already been created, the stories already written, and the hero's defined and beloved.

My advice has always been, enjoy the games for what they are. IMO, if someone tries to take their favorite 2E or 3E characters and covert them to 4E, the game may not meet their expectation. On the other hand if people would create new characters and bond with the 4E experience, they will be much more open to the strengths the game will bring.

 

[Green Knight]

Why? What about spell slots is required for stories about beginning wizards? I can't think of many stories about beginning wizards, but none of the sorceror's apprentice who made all those brooms, Luke Skywalker, that guy from Robert Asprin's Myth books, the Gray Mouser were described as having spell slots, that I remember.

The Vancian system was introduced to model a wizard's growing power. But it's not the only way to do so.

One can only imagine how those Harry Potter novels would've gone if Harry suddenly couldn't cast any more spells for the rest of the day because he'd already used Expelliarmus twice.

 

[drjones]

Second, the powers thing is only a problem if you let it be. From the perspective of creating a narrative, which in essence is what is important to the OP, the description is what is important for powers. The non-Martial powers would be harder to hand wave than the Martial powers, but the multiclass and retraining rules could allow you to play 1st level martial characters that progress to become high level arcane or divine characters.

I would agree although I would go further to say that nothing I have seen in this thread is a problem, unless you are really looking for a problem to have.