D&D 4E 4e skill system -dont get it.

[Just Another User]

You left out the part where the ranger won the last roll (Hard difficulty) to secure the corpse together with rope so it would hold tight even when touched. In other words, the trap was disabled. That's what the 6 rolls meant. They were not unrelated, and I find it very weird and contrived that you would say that.

Oh, that was what you meant with "secure the corpse"? Then I apologize, it was late and I must have missed or misunderstood the sentence.


But still I'm not totally persuaded, for example what if the ranger's thievery check was not the 6 success but the fourth? Or to use a more extreme (and rule lawyerish) example, he just cut the rope? He don't need a skill check for that, no failed skill check, no failed challenge, right? (ok, this is a little extreme), or if he did another thing, like a perception check to see if the black satyr is somewhere around? Or an knowledge arcana to see what poison was used in the corpse? if he succed the challenge is won? Do skill check unrelated to the challenge (i.e. that reasonably don't help, nor hinder the challenge count against the challenge limits?

I still think the system is too gamist for my taste, but I agree that everything that could have been said was already been said and is pointless to continue the discussion, not until we see the complete rules, at least.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

Well, your point wasn't supported by much argumentation, so what do you want?

Anyhow, I posted you a post with some questions/points for further discussion. Address them if you like. The biggie is "Where does a DM's narrative authority come from?" Once we establish that we can talk about if the 4e skill system promises to erode it.

No, I think we won't be talking about it much at all.

I was moving towards a point, with a few premises that are still open for debate. For example, History seems to broad for the uses to which it has been demonstrated. It doesn't really matter who has narrative authority in that case. If it is entirely with the DM, then the skill itself is fairly irrelevant. The DM can call for any roll they see fit. If it is entirely with the players, they can simply use whichever skill is highest, regardless of 'applicability'. Certainly, something between is best, which is what 4e appears to strive for, but in using overly broad skill categories, it may have a harder time achieving that. Now, not only does the appropriate skill need to be determined, the scope of that skill will need to be taken into consideration, as well as the differing opinions on that scope.

It seems like a good deal of negotiation will have to take place before the dice hit the table.

 

[hong]

Encouraging negotiation and collaboration is definitely a step forward, but I think this may weaken the ability of the DM to put their foot down and declare something is just inappropriate.

This is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, that was what you meant with "secure the corpse"? Then I apologize, it was late and I must have missed or misunderstood the sentence.


But still I'm not totally persuaded, for example what if the ranger's thievery check was not the 6 success but the fourth? Or to use a more extreme (and rule lawyerish) example, he just cut the rope? He don't need a skill check for that, no failed skill check, no failed challenge, right? (ok, this is a little extreme), or if he did another thing, like a perception check to see if the black satyr is somewhere around? Or an knowledge arcana to see what poison was used in the corpse? if he succed the challenge is won? Do skill check unrelated to the challenge (i.e. that reasonably don't help, nor hinder the challenge count against the challenge limits?

I still think the system is too gamist for my taste, but I agree that everything that could have been said was already been said and is pointless to continue the discussion, not until we see the complete rules, at least.

Well, to use your "cut the rope" example, my answer would be, when did he cut the rope? If he cut the rope after the six successes, then the trap does not get triggered, for whatever reason - maybe the 6 successes disarmed the trap, maybe the trap was a dud. Since they've defeated the challenge, then anything (within reason) they do after that will not result in a bad situation.

OTOH, if they did 4 things then cut the rope, then the trap would go off since that would constitute failing the scenario. Now, whether or not the trap going off would actually hurt the party could depend on a number of things. If they stood off a long ways and shot arrows at the rope until the corpse fell down, then the trap wouldn't hit them. Then again, now they have a seriously pissed off Dryad to deal with who likely is not all that happy with all the arrows stuck into her tree.

The trick is to create scenarios where there is more than a binary pass/fail situation. If there is only a single trap and nothing else, then, it's not all that different than a 3e situation. Take 20 on search, try to disarm or take actions that will set off the trap safely. 4e appears to be encouraging DM's to create more dynamic situations where you have more possible outcomes than pass/fail.

Celebrim - I'm not sure if you can claim a strength for 3e when you yourself claim to have moved beyond 3e rules. For example you stated that the diplomacy rules are terrible and you don't use them. It's very difficult to compare Celebrim's 3e to 4e since, other than you, no one plays your game.

 

[Ahglock]

Nonsense.

Yessense.

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim - I'm not sure if you can claim a strength for 3e when you yourself claim to have moved beyond 3e rules. For example you stated that the diplomacy rules are terrible and you don't use them. It's very difficult to compare Celebrim's 3e to 4e since, other than you, no one plays your game.

I'm not sure I'm primarily claiming strengths for 3e. I don't see this as a binary, 'either you must think 4e is God's gift to gaming and 3e sucks' or else 'you must think that 3e is the one true edition and that 4e is a pile of crap'. I don't feel that I have to compare 4e or 3e to anything when criticizing them. I was plenty critical of 3e's diplomacy rules before I had anything to compare them to based simply on the observed results and extrapolating out the worst case. I'd likewise be critical of the 4e skill system (or at least as much of it as I've seen) even without 3e. Unlike the developers, I don't feel the need to trash 3e in order to praise 4e, nor do I feel the need to praise 3e in order to express my displeasure with the chosen direction of 4e. I can trash or praise quite independently.

I haven't even mentioned 3e in a while, and back when I was comparing 3e and 4e explicitly I was comparing 4e favorably to 3e, so I'm not sure what prompted your comment. But, just because 3e is broke doesn't mean I'm forced to think that 4e is fixed.

One thing I do do alot of is point out that 4e hasn't in fact invented the wheel. Far too often the designers (or posters) make assertions about how 3e was played that are sterotypical, and don't necessarily reflect how the game was played even as far back as 1e. Far too many examples have the premise that 3e DM's were bad DM's and 4e DM's are going to be great ones merely because they've changed systems. As I said earlier, the 4e design team deserves alot of credit for pushing dynamic environments, complex multi-wave encounters, DM creativity, interesting terrain, proactive villains, traps as part of an encounter, regular use of skill challenges, and so forth. Whether they'll succeed in improving DMing out there remains to be seen. I do think that they are making a game which is somewhat easier on novice DMs than prior editions. I don't think however the 4e invented any of these things, don't often see how the new mechanics facillitate them, and I resent the whole 'in 3e you couldn't have X...', when I've had 'X' since 1st edition. Telling me how great 4e is for allowing me to do something I already can do is like trying to sell me a new blender when my old one works fine. Show me what it will blend that my old one won't that I'm actually going to want to do. Don't try to pretend you invented the milk shake.

 

[Ahglock]

MMMNnnnnnn Milk Shakes

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

One thing I do do alot of is point out that 4e hasn't in fact invented the wheel. Far too often the designers (or posters) make assertions about how 3e was played that are sterotypical, and don't necessarily reflect how the game was played even as far back as 1e. Far too many examples have the premise that 3e DM's were bad DM's and 4e DM's are going to be great ones merely because they've changed systems. As I said earlier, the 4e design team deserves alot of credit for pushing dynamic environments, complex multi-wave encounters, DM creativity, interesting terrain, proactive villains, traps as part of an encounter, regular use of skill challenges, and so forth. Whether they'll succeed in improving DMing out there remains to be seen. I do think that they are making a game which is somewhat easier on novice DMs than prior editions. I don't think however the 4e invented any of these things, don't often see how the new mechanics facillitate them, and I resent the whole 'in 3e you couldn't have X...', when I've had 'X' since 1st edition. Telling me how great 4e is for allowing me to do something I already can do is like trying to sell me a new blender when my old one works fine. Show me what it will blend that my old one won't that I'm actually going to want to do. Don't try to pretend you invented the milk shake.

I don't know that I have the same emotional reaction you describe here, but I think this was a good analysis. Thanks for taking the time to write it out.

One thing I would add is that there an implicit group in this dynamic besides DM's and that's adventure writers and game designers.

Now you and I, as DMs, may have had X back when we were working off of blue folders, but the common truth is that in 3e we didn't often get X from published products.

One of the problems with the marketting is that I think we get WotC saying, 'You can do X now!' when what they should be saying is, 'We've finally given ourselves permission to write X the way you've always done it.'

The first one is crap, of course we could always do that, the second one is actually kind of nice. 'DnD 4E: No More Annoying Adventure Design!' isn't the sexiest marketting slogan, but it is an honest comfort.

'DnD 4E: The Game the Way You've Always Played!'*cough* with Hasbro minis.

 

[pemerton]

the point is, as soon as a player can die, then you are creating the possiblity 'all players die'.

I assume I should read "PC" in place of "player".

the possibility of a TPK is introduced as soon as we allow character 'death' (where character 'death' means you can no longer play as that character without intervention by another player).

This claim is not actually true.

To draw on the Monopoly example, the fact that it is possible for one player to go bankrupt in the game does not entail that it is possible for everyone in the game to go bankrupt - because the last player still solvent wins.

It is similarly possible to conceive of RPG rules that allocate certain metagame resources to the players of the surviving PCs when a party member dies, and once a single player has sufficiently many such resources his or her PC cannot die (what the in-game explanation for this might be would depend upon the in-game effect of spending the metagame resources).

That level of risk is available in Monopoly. You can be put out of the game, be unable to continue to play, and the game goes on without you.

<snip>

A game where you can't actually suffer character death, is equivalent to a game of monopoly where no one can actually go bankrupt.

Accepting that part of the point of playing Monopoly is to win, it stands to reason that one bankruptcy (and thus losing out on the chance to have fun playing the game) is one possible consequence of play. I have played games of Monopoly which are not so competitive, however (it is, rather, to fill in an otherwise boring afternoon) and in those cases various devices are used to keep the bankrupt in the game (eg gifts and/or loans from other players, or from the bank).

A game in which PCs can't die might be more equivalent to these non-competitve versions of Monopoly. Given the (non-competitive) point of a fair bit of RPGing, such a game might make a fair bit of sense.

Even within a competitive framework such a game might make a fair bit of sense, if the point of the competition was not to keep one's PC alive, but rather to affect the in-game world in a certain way (because there are many ways to prevent the PC being used successfully as a means to that end without killing the PC).

 

[FitzTheRuke]

WotC saying, 'You can do X now!' when what they should be saying is, 'We've finally given ourselves permission to write X the way you've always done it.'

Well, to be fair, they've said that on many occasions. I'm not sure why some people get so testy when something is pointed out as "4E now allows you to do this...!" with the old complaint "but you could do this before!"

Very few people are EVER saying that you COULDN'T do it before, even when it sounds like they are. They are really trying to say that the rules support that type of play to an extent that it hasn't before. But it would be really, really LONG to have to say that every time.

It's like the people who seem to think that one should always start a sentence "In my opinion..."

Of course it's MY opinion, I'M the one saying it.

Fitz