D&D 4E 4E: DM-proofing the game

[pemerton]

On the main point of the thread, I agree with the OP:Under 4e, the DM is little more than a Combat Adjudicator, and he exists only until he can be effectively replaced with a computer.

Just wanting to make it clear that in agreeing (largely) with Reynard I don't think I'm agreeing to this at all! For example (and quite unlike any computer game I know about) 4e will allow the GM to play co-operatively with the players in setting up situations of adversity to the PCs which permit exploration of all sorts of thematic questions. As in super-hero comics, the main (but not only) means of expressing and resolving conflict will be combat. But the GM's role won't be primarily combat adjudicator, it will rather be setting up combats that play the desired thematic function.

There will also be gamist play, but I don't think it will be like computer gaming either. (To continue the comparison to comics, I see the narrativist version of 4e as similar to early-to-mid-80s X-Men, and gamist 4e as similar to early-to-mid-90s X-Men - same characters, same tropes, completely different literary experience).

4E is intended to 'fix' what was wrong with 3E, and based on the design by that they largely mean 'things that would make translating it to a computer hard'.

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Once you realize that, alot of the question of 'Why are they doing THAT?!?!?' goes away.

Yeah, that's kind of becoming my conclusion as well. It's becoming the only logical reason for many of the design decisions.

I couldn't agree less.

 

[SSquirrel]

The game has always needed a cleric in the group. Look at the foreward of just about every module produced by TSR. You'll see a paragraph that suggests pretty strongly the classes you need to complete that module. There's a reason that the traditional party was 3 fighter types, a cleric, wizard and thief. You needed all those roles to be filled. Not having a thief meant that you were getting smacked with traps, some of which didn't have saving throws. Not having a cleric meant you died. A lot.

Or we play Arcana Evolved where there is no arcane/divine split and every caster is capable of casting healing magic. YAY!

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton, how do you distinguish between control over the narrative and a PC using a power?

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To involve control of the narrative I would say it has to be something the PC could not control, but the player does.

PC power usage is the main way, in D&D, of a player controlling the narrative. But there are also APs, and the PoL conceits, which aren't PC powers. As long as it is the player who gets to choose whether or not to use a power, I don't see the need to distinguish things in the way your second sentence does.

I am not a fan of "narrative control" mechanics in general. they have their place in certain kinds of RPGs, just not ones I am a huge fan of.

I'm not shocked to hear your view here. But as I said above, you don't need a special class of mechanics to redistribute narrative control. Second Wind does it, for example (by giving the player the ability to refresh his or her PC's main protagonism-guaranteeing resource, namely, hit points), although to the inattentive reader it is not distinguishable from Phantom Steed on the power list.

I disagree with this claim. With one exception, every one of your examples of how 4e will turn narrative power over to the players are trivial in comparison to their actual role: to strengthen worldbuilding and in some cases, even turn the narrative power over to the DM.

Fair enough.

Making monsters more recognizable and distinctive: it has been noted explicitly that monster design will be exception based with fewer design restrictions on the DM.

Rebalancing magic items and encounter build rules: This one really baffles me. The intent is to allow DMs a better chance of estimating the challenge of an encounter.

If the DM can predict the outcome, so can the players.

Most of what Reynard has says on these points, I agree with. Yes, the GM has more sophisticated rules in 4e to set up a range of encounters. But their predictability/systematisation (compared especially to AD&D, and improved in this respect over 3E) combined with changes in expectations about when adversity will arise, I think empower players in the game.

Reading the pit fiend stat block made me realize that, while it seems kind of odd that the creatures don't seem like they will exist outside of the bounds of a combat encounter, there is in fact a lot of blank space. And blank space is the best thing you can give a DM.

But I think 4e expects the GM to do very different things with this blank space from what AD&D did.

Introducing the PoL assumption that PoLs are safehavens until the players choose to trigger adversity. Considering that this is not a rule, but a suggestion for worldbuilding, this hardly seems to transfer narrative control over to the players any more than the assumption that PoL settings will have less area understood by the players and under PC-friendly control and more of the map under the DM's exclusive understanding and control makes the reverse.

What I had in mind is that the players, by deciding when to enter the GM-controlled area of the map, get to toggle adversity on or off. This is a big change from traditional D&D, which assumes the GM can launch an encounter at any time (eg AD&D 1st ed DMG had random city encounters).

Giving all PCs per-encounter abilities: This allows the DM to now pace adventures and encounters to his own wishes, rather than restrict them to the vagaries of his player's choices in the use of their limited resources. Have we all forgotten the infamous "15-minute adventuring day?" Or are we now claiming that it represented a triumph of DM narrative power that has been overturned? With limited per day resources, the players are fully capable of exhausting them, leaving the DM with the choice to either overwhelm them or allow them to rest.

Note that at the start of this paragraph you have the players determining pacing, and at the end you have the GM doing it. I think the latter is true of 3E.

Yes, per-encounter frees the GM up to launch encounters at any time (subject to the adversity-conditions I've noted above). But as abilities refresh, it makes little difference. The GM has lost the ability to wear down or overwhelm the PCs.

Yes, I disagree. The entire game is directly under the purview of the DM.

Except for the fact that the DM chooses the environment the PCs interact with, the NPCs they encounter, the adventures they go on, the encounters they have, the challenges they must overcome

Agreed. But in earlier versions of D&D the GM does much more than this, and with fewer constraints.

and rules on the options the PCs may choose from when generating their characters and probably a bunch of other things that don't immediately leap to mind.

I tend to assume that these things are determined by the group as a whole, when they decide what game to play.

The entire focus of the game has shifted to "the encounter". Monsters are built around encounters, and non-combat abilities (even those for "social encounters") are given short shrift -- the Pit Fiend, the cunning, plotting, master of hellish politics, had TWO SKILLS relating to non combat activities, and no kinds of powers, special abilities, tweaks, or gimmicks which might feed into this putative "social encounter" system. This doesn't bespeak a lot of focus on social abilities.

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so there's no need to wonder what the pit fiend might be doing while the PCs are just beginning to investigate his schemes, or work out how the pit fiend controls the arch-lich who is his putative ally.

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Handwaving it all down to "Just write a note on the character sheet" cheapens non-combat skills immeasurably.

The fact that something is not mechanically expressed in the game system does not make it unimportant. What it does mean is that it won't be the focus of mechanically-mediated action resolution.

So yes, 4e cheapens the mechanical significance, for PCs, of non-adventuring skills because it is being written as a game of heroic adventure. If you want a game that gives mechanics for building houses, D&D is not it. (Even RQ and RM really only handwave in the direction of what you are calling for, because they have no real mechanics for these non-combat skills to feed into.)

But returning to the Pit Fiend, between skill checks and rituals (any number of which, presumably, the GM can add without changing his combat level and XP value) I'm sure there is ample mechanical scope to flesh out his or her role as a manipulator, controller of liches etc.

if there are "social encounters", what guidelines do I have for balance? Will we have Solo Intimidators? Elite Negotiaters? Minion Flatterers?

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"You can just do what you want!" flies in the face of the putative goal of 4e providing guidance for new DMs. That is, after all, why we're getting all the "assumed setting" fluff crammed into the core rules. So if we assume a new DM can't make up a basic world, why assume he can balance a monster for social encounter (a much more complex process than mere worldbuilding) without rules?

No need to make the assumption. The most logical inference from everything we know is that the sort of rules you mock in your first quoted paragraph will be in the game.

I believe I said "Skill POINTS".

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My favorite systems are those which don't distinguish between PC and NPC mechanically -- GURPS, Hero, BESM, for example. D&D 3e was borderlineish, but was close enough to a unified mechanic that I liked it. 4e is moving in what I consider to be the wholly wrong direction.

I agree that 4e is moving away from these ultra-simulationist approaches. I don't think that's the wrong direction for D&D to take, however.

it seems like the overwhelming consensus here is that this is a good thing, as GM's can't be trusted.

I'd say - can't always be trusted to know what the players want as well as the players do.

 

[PeterWeller]

The other element of the quest system is that it is a record of rewards, both in-game and meta-game. This is the part that concerns me. perhaps the intent isn't to write those rewards in stone prior to the accomplishing of the quest goals, but it seems like that could easily happen. I think that rewards, particularly the meta-game ones like XP or bonus Action Dice, should be determined and revealed to the players after all is said and done because how they go about achieving the quest goals is more important than actually doing so. In addition, goals change all the time -- it seems like wasted effort to bother with a Quest mechanic if the goalposts move based on the circumstances of play.

I never got any indication from the article about quests and quest cards that the developers were even suggesting that one put the XP reward for completing the quest on the card. The quest cards sounded like a simple book keeping tool. Don't confuse the system for rewarding XP for completing story goals with a suggestion as to how the DM can remind players of what story goals to which they have committed.

 

[FourthBear]

Agreed. But in earlier versions of D&D the GM does much more than this, and with fewer constraints.

I must admit that I am unwilling to disentangle all the various threads and subfragments of arguments that I might reply to in your last post. However, I do think that this very important claim needs to be supported, as I find that it is highly controversial. Please present your argument that in 4e the DM will have more constraints than the DM in 3.5e. I think it is trivially false based on the information we have received to date. As I noted before, the changes to NPC and monster generation alone have fewer DM restrictions than those for 3.5e and its monster advancement and class leveling system. The addition of rituals to handle "plot device" magic and the encouragement of DMs to tailor specific powers for monsters without regard to their appropriateness for a possible PC race (bitterly resented by many players and DMs who wish for all monsters to be PC-ready) are both indications of lower DM restrictions.

 

[apoptosis]

So yes, 4e cheapens the mechanical significance, for PCs, of non-adventuring skills because it is being written as a game of heroic adventure. If you want a game that gives mechanics for building houses, D&D is not it. (Even RQ and RM really only handwave in the direction of what you are calling for, because they have no real mechanics for these non-combat skills to feed into.)

I think there is a point in here that is very valid and has been said.

D&D is really not going to try and be the Fantasy toolbox anymore. Though it never was exactly designed to be that way, due to its popularity, the only game on the market (not really but at one time, it was pretty close) and ease of play it was used as a Fantasy toolbox. People knew the system so they adapted to whatever was at hand.

D&D is focusing on being a game for a relatively specific type of heroic adventuring (basically conquering a series of mostly combat encounters where all characters are similarly effective in most situations) and somewhat simulating the heroic journey.

It wont be a game to do sword and sorcery very well, political intrigue or many other types of games. Nor will it be the game where wizards are capable of a scope of power that is inaccessible to the non-spell users.Because it is based on conquering a series of combats, it is balancing characters based on their abilities to have balanced effectiveness in a single combat with everything else being supportive. The DM is losing some powers in some way and some options are being restricted so that the overall focus can be better implemented.

This is not a bad thing, games should focus on stuff so that they will do that thing well. This doesnt mean D&D cant do other things, just that other systems will do them better and do what D&D does worse.

Some of the narrative types of rules could be employed though to make it even better at delivering this specific heroic adventure type of goal.

 

[SSquirrel]

Once the "card" is handed over, so too is the DM's ability to adjudicate the quest handed over, as is his ability to manipulate the quest, its rewards or its details. Now the players are holding the "card" that says "Stop BBEG's plans and gain 1000gp and 1000xp". The tool of the DM to motivate the players to engage his adventure has become a weapon in the hands of the players against the DM's rightto judge whether the PCs did what they were supposed to do in a manner consistent with the game being played. With "card" in hand, the PCs can go KoDT on the local village just to get to the bad guy and still have a concrete backing for receiving their reward.

So let's say the quest is to go to the small local village where a villian has setup camp, has several hostages including the sister of the good aligned (and known to be fair) king. His charge to you, to see this man dead and his head at the king's feet. DM hands over card saying kill BBEG get 10k xp and 1k gold. Party goes in and decides to just burn the whole town down and dig out the charred head for their reward.

So you're trying to tell me the king wouldn't be allowed to be outraged and have the players killed for murdering an entire town and his sister? Sorry, the players know right and wrong and anyone trying to charge their DM w/being unfair for that result needs slapped in the head.

I am of the opinion that 1e, and to a lesser extent 2e, were much more fun and effective games, in no small part because of the vast amount of combined power and responsibility granted to the DM. If there's a euphamism for DM/GM I think is least appropriate, it's "Storyteller" and if there's a most appropriate one, it is "Judge". What I think lots of hard coded rules does is make the DM a "Referee" with more responsibilities than powers.

Ok so I am to assume that the only reason to play D&D for you then is to be the DM and go on a power trip? B/c that is exactly what this sounds like. It's exactly the kind of people I have gamed w/in the past and left b/c the game was horrible. Being a DM is no power if your game sucks and people leave. Being a DM is really no power at all, you're hanging w/your friends and working together to have a good time.

 

[Afrodyte]

For what it's worth, I prefer to use NPCs as adversaries instead of monsters. This makes it difficult (at best) to create the scenarios I'd like to run. It simply takes too long, and I have a life outside of D&D too. While I could easily handwave it, I don't like to do that too often because I hate arbitrarily disempowering the players. Doing it on the fly makes would likely (in my case) lead to inconsistency and disrupt the flow of the game. If I have 10 hours a week to plan a game (being generous here), I would rather spend the bulk of my time creating the world, crafting a scenario, and giving the PCs personal reasons to get involved.

WRT 3.Xe, this means that I've been at best reluctant to attempt to run a game, even a one-shot. However, upon gleaning a few details about 4e, I'm really excited about running a game.

As far as giving players narrative control, I think it's about time. I can't stand GMing for a passive group. I find it dull and draining.

 

[Reynard]

Ok so I am to assume that the only reason to play D&D for you then is to be the DM and go on a power trip? B/c that is exactly what this sounds like. It's exactly the kind of people I have gamed w/in the past and left b/c the game was horrible. Being a DM is no power if your game sucks and people leave. Being a DM is really no power at all, you're hanging w/your friends and working together to have a good time.

Ah. EN World's institutional anti-DMism rears its head again.

 

[Reynard]

As far as giving players narrative control, I think it's about time. I can't stand GMing for a passive group. I find it dull and draining.

Just because you hand them the reigns doesn't mean they'll drive. Active players will take control of a table regardless of how stringent the game system is; passive players will sit like lumps even if they are given the keys to the kingdom. Nothing kills a game like player apathy.