D&D 4E 4e Encounter Design... Why does it or doesn't it work for you?

[Quickleaf]

So, completely unfounded, then. 4e guidelines do give you non-trivial combats that are engaging and reasonably balanced (not quite as neatly as classes are balanced, but better than ever before). You don't /have/ to use those guidelines, though, if you want quick, trivial combats you can throw a few minions or single standard monster at the party and call it a fight, with little or no need of minis and very rapid resolution, indeed. And, if you don't use the guidelines, you're no worse off than you were shooting for a good encounter design in the dark with classic D&D.

This complaint amounts to "the game doesn't advise me to run boring combats." OK, fair enough. Like so many complaints, it's ragging on the game for being good and getting something right. If you're counting on D&D to give you such boring and frustrating combats that your players would rather talk to some NPCs for two hours to avoid having to break out the dice, 4e is going to fail you, true.

Tony, I run a great game of 4e, and I totally get what you're saying here. My point was that folks like you, me, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] , and others are pretty awesome DMs - we tend to have experience DMing across editions and have been playing around with 4e quite a bit. It's not that 4e CAN'T do these things (eg. quick trivial combats), on the contrary I think the system is quite versatile...it's that the *presentation* of the game tends to pigeon-hole less experienced/adaptive DMs.

An example of how combat, say, could be better presented would be for the DMG to provide guidelines like: "Not every combat warrants pulling out minis and a grid, and here is our litmus test for whether or not you should run a combat with minis..." This could be followed with advice about using stealth checks to "minion-ize" enemies, how to challenge the quest rather than the PCs' lives (eg. Alternate combat objectives), ways to adjudicate range/area of effect when in theatre of the mind, etc. For lots of us this seems like basic stuff, but I think itwouldbe invaluable to new DMs.

Were we playing different games entirely?

Combat in 3e took forever too. It's just that each round took longer. A combat could be 3 rounds, but it takes about an hour for everything to resolve. 4e combat can take an hour, but it's just more rounds.

It was a rare combat I played in where minis were not used.

And this wasn't just one table experience, but about a dozen games over the life of 3e.

Actually I was thinkingof 1e/2e. I am one of those rare gamers who pretty much went from 2e to 4e and skipped 3e almost entirely. Though I did play a 12th level knight for a few months and my very limited experience with 3e matchs yours - combats took a long time and "grind" was a serious problem.

Different frames of reference

 

[Starfox]

The most functional mental framework through which to run dynamic, fulfilling Skill Challenges is a hybrid of High Concept Sim (genre emulation be it Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Star Wars, Comic Books, LotR, what have you) + Narrative/Story Now agenda (Fiction First, Genre Logic interpretation of checks).

We tried this. We really did. But it was simply impossible to keep dramatic tension up with so many die rolls and no decisions to make except "what skill to roll next".

 

[Rechan]

Actually I was thinkingof 1e/2e. I am one of those rare gamers who pretty much went from 2e to 4e and skipped 3e almost entirely. Though I did play a 12th level knight for a few months and my very limited experience with 3e matchs yours - combats took a long time and "grind" was a serious problem.

Different frames of reference

Ah, so we WERE playing different games; aside from a couple of one-shots, I never got to play 2e.

 

[Jhaelen]

We tried this. We really did. But it was simply impossible to keep dramatic tension up with so many die rolls and no decisions to make except "what skill to roll next".

Well, I don't know, but in our games you cannot make a skill roll without first deciding and telling what you want your pc to do.

If you reduce your roleplaying to naked die rolls it's no wonder you didn't enjoy playing.

Pre-4e there were rules that played to the archetype. Fighters could bend bars and lift gates. Wizards could charm people. Clerics could command. Rogues could hide in shadows. These were important abilities because other characters didn't really get these capabilities -- they were exclusive to your archetype.

As others have already mentioned: Wow, just wow. You really think _that_ was a good idea?

Nobody except a fighter can bend bars? Not only is this a blatantly gamist rule, it also doesn't make one iota of sense: What is bending bars part of the special training fighters get?

If there's one thing I've always hated in AD&D 1e it's that only thieves could get thievery skills.

Exclusivity of skills is a bad problem that rpgs other than D&D also used to have, but almost all of them have evolved past it, and for good reason:
If the only party able to succeed in a typical adventure is one that includes every archetype, players have zero choice in creating their characters. Who actually enjoys that?

It is, btw. one of the reasons why multi-classing was so popular: I guess every group featured Half Elf fighter/mage/thieves. Ours definitely did.

Bad design decisions that force players into making stupid character choices? No thanks.

 

[pemerton]

I am one of those rare gamers who pretty much went from 2e to 4e and skipped 3e almost entirely.

Interesting! I mostly skipped 3E too (though for me I was mostly GMing RM, and played but only once or twice GMed 2nd ed).

Part of the reason I stopped DM-ing 4e was that the system also puts a lot of pressure to shower the players with magical items. If you don't, the "math" of the system relatively quickly breaks down.

I know a lot of people use inherent bonuses, which weren't formalised until DMG2 (I think).

I use the approach mentioned in Adventurer's Vault, of generally levelling up the PCs' existing items in lieu of having them find new ones.

I think it would have been helpful for either or both of these options to be mentioned up front in the first DMG.

He commented to me that he didn't see the point of designing social challenges anymore. The reason he gave was that he fully expected several of the players to bully their way through them. The example he game (and one I've repeated in previous conversations here on Enworld) was having an audience with a king or a lord. Even surrounded by guards and whatnot, he expected a significant portion of the group to be on board with simply killing the king/lord/whatever and then just mowing down the guards and other pcs if need be to get away.

I'm curious about the tiers of these PCs.

Paragon tier PCs are certainly capable of killing kings and their entourage, as you say. They may be kings, or king equivalents, themselves. (A bit like AD&D name level PCs.) The game relies upon the assumption that kings are embedded in a deeper, cosmology-spanning social order (hence the link, in Worlds & Monster and subsequent setting material, between the overthrow of Nerath and the demon lord Yeenoghu.)

Epic tier PCs, in turn, are capable of killing gods, or at least godlings. They are gods themselves, reshaping the cosmology-spanning social order.

I'm not sure how any of the above relates to your own experiences with the game. But it's the way I see the game's fiction working.

I know that Chris Perkins runs a more world-bound game that he describes in his column, but for the sorts of reasons that I read in your posts (or, at least, that I take from your posts!) I'm not 100% sure how it works - how he reconciles a world in which the NPC kings, spy masters etc are as tough as gods. Maybe in Iomandra gods aren't such a big deal?

 

[Manbearcat]

On an unrelated point - what's your view of LostSoul's hypothesis about skill challenges, situation design and player agency, that I responded to half-a-dozen or so posts upthread?

Sorry for the winding response. This was written in segments and I don't have time to go back and format/edit to confirm coherency. It will probably read like stream of thought. Here goes:

I would say that Skill Challenges share more in common with the intimate experience of reading a book than they do with watching a film. For Skill Challenges we have two multiple running, concurrent conduits through which the tapestry is composed and experienced:

1 - The subtle rendering of the scene in our minds which is the confluence of our assimilation of what is conveyed to us by our co-players/GM with our own unique presuppositions/expectations/mental processes.

2 - The concrete rendering of the scene by way of specific intra-challenge outcomes and the ultimate outcome to the scene.

You may have a chase scene through a forest whereby 2 dictates the concrete "what". However, 1 fleshes out the scene and brings it to life. It makes it our own. For one person, this tree might be here, while for another it is over there. For one person there is an odd stillness to the moment broken up by the cackling of a murder of crows...while another "hears" the thunderous roar of the waterfall which overtakes all other sounds. There is a lot of subtle nuance that goes into 1 for each person at the table. If you take out that subtle nuance, make the "color" of the topography, the exact sounds, the exact nature of every motion concrete, then you take away the abstraction that their mind in-fills with their own inputs. It is no longer their own and, as such, their level of engagement likely moves from that of a pro-active reader of a book, conjuring the imagery (etc) in their minds, to that of a passive movie watcher.

It seems that many speak of "player agency" being contingent upon as close to an absolute shared rendering (1) as possible, and accompanying expectations of what is and what shall come, otherwise it is "jarring." Their scene must be precisely the same as the person next to them, otherwise it is "jarring." Their shared interpretation of an Acrobatics check under all circumstances (regardless of context) must have internal consistency otherwise it is "jarring". Their expectations of stance must be consistent (typically actor), otherwise it is "jarring." These folks come at the game from a Process-Simulationist (with a side of G) agenda. Precise, shared narrative and precise, shared "understanding" of PC perspective and mechanical output is mandatory for them. So, it would make sense for them to seek concreteness and thus marginalizing 1 as much as possible. As such, it would make sense for them to seek a physical rendering of the scene before them (the precise location of the rock from the tree from the path from the waterfall, etc).

My position is that a hgihly functional Skill Challenge is predicated upon the table adopting, and fully buying into, a High Concept Sim + Story Now agenda and the players/GM developing the skill-set for that agenda whiile cultivating chemistry between each other. For this, 1 needs not be stifled or marginalized. It needs to proliferate as much as possible for their to be dynamism at the table and interesting renderings of each step along the way.

I suppose then that there may be some sort of proportion of 1 (above): "player agency"...either truly or objectively. The thing is is that "player agency" at a Process Sim + (small) g table is very different than "player agency" at a High Concept Sim + G + N table...and any of the other potential incarnations. "Player agency" at my table (which is the latter) is something like:

- Does my PC's mechanical build tools properly represent the archetype I'm going for when I mechanically interact with the game world/challenges?

- Do I have the authority to express my PC's theme/archetype and impose that upon our shared narrative and is it mechanically supported?

- Do the mechanics of the game support my genre preferences (the backdrop in front of which my PC will express himself)?

That is player agency at my table. We don't need a concrete rendering that marginalizes 1. In fact, I'm all but certain that if we used it with any frequency, it would have a negative afffect and, subconsciously, the G portion of our agenda would grow, an S would manifest naturally, and the HCS and N would shrink proportionately. My guess is that many folks on here would not like playing in my games as they would likely percieve their "player agency" infringed upon because of the table agenda and accompanying dynamics.

 

[Quickleaf]

Ah, so we WERE playing different games; aside from a couple of one-shots, I never got to play 2e.

In my best faux French accent: "But ze game is ze same!"

IMHO the only thing you missed in 2e were the settings, the rules were not so hot but the settings were glorious.

 

[Starfox]

Well, I don't know, but in our games you cannot make a skill roll without first deciding and telling what you want your pc to do.

If you reduce your roleplaying to naked die rolls it's no wonder you didn't enjoy playing.

After playing a few skill challenges, on the later part of one, the most descriptive play some of our players managed was a yawn. Of course, we are skilled enough to give such a description if required, but that does not mean we're having fun. A set of rules that encourages yawns is not a good one. Saying its a fault with the players is just being rude.

I get feeling of purism here - "either like all of 4E, or drop dead". That is bad for discussion. Don't get me wrong. I may appear very anti 4E here, but that's because only my anti-4E statements get challenged and need to be defended. In other venues I get talked down because I am not bashing 4E "hard enough".

There are good parts of 4E, and definitely good ideas in 4E (tough often badly implemented). But talking down to anyone here who even mutters of criticizing 4E won't get you anywhere except ignored.

 

[Storminator]

Part of the reason I stopped DM-ing 4e was that the system also puts a lot of pressure to shower the players with magical items. If you don't, the "math" of the system relatively quickly breaks down.

This is my biggest problem with the system. I haven't found a satisfactory answer yet.

I use inherent bonuses. I also have a house rule that inherent bonuses do 1d6 per plus on a crit. Then I give the PCs each 3 magic items (L-1, L, and L+1) that they can swap out when they level.

I then give out treasure that is more meaningful and interesting (at least to me . . . ).

It's still unsatisfying. But at least the problem is players complaining that there's no interesting magic items for them to choose instead of them complaining that I gave them crappy items.

PS

 

[Rechan]

Even as someone looking to run another 4e game, I generally don't use skill challenges, and I personally don't hand out a lot of magical items. Changing the math formula so that each person may get 2 items eventually, but each item has multi-purposes.