D&D 4E 4E: The day the game ate the roleplayer?

[Will]

There are ways to encourage balance. I've always found the Buffy RPG (Cinimatic Unisystem) model interesting... characters with less 'stuff' have a greater amount of, essentially, luck points.

Which really helps capture the scrappy sidekick who somehow manages to survive all sorts of badness.

 

[smathis]

There are ways to encourage balance. I've always found the Buffy RPG (Cinimatic Unisystem) model interesting... characters with less 'stuff' have a greater amount of, essentially, luck points.

Which really helps capture the scrappy sidekick who somehow manages to survive all sorts of badness.

Another good point, Will. I found the Buffy RPG to be perhaps the flagship of how to handle PCs at different power levels. The only complication this produces for 4e is that there really isn't anything in there that is as powerful as a Drama Point in Buffy.

At least we haven't seen anything like it thus far.

Still I don't think it will be difficult to implement something like that in 4e. At least, no more difficult than 3.5.

I was involved in a thread on RPG.net that covered the farmboy-to-jedi/wizard or the "kid" archetype in fantasy/scifi. There was a great suggestion on there about creating a unique class (likely a Leader) whose "powers" would be more along the lines of luck -- as opposed to skill.

I think this is doable in 4e and would go a long way towards making it "monomyth friendly".

Personally, I'd like to see some advice on playing pre-1st level PCs -- as well as balancing those against regular 1st level (or higher PCs) using something like the Drama Points in Buffy.

That's my only problem with the whole party "balance" issue. I understand why it's there. But sometimes I wouldn't mind having different levels in the same party. I think it could also make death a ton more meaningful (if the end result was you lost a level or something).

But I'll be the first to admit that this is expecting way too much out of 4e.

That's why I'll be buying the DMG for the sidebars.

 

[Wolfspider]

There are ways to encourage balance. I've always found the Buffy RPG (Cinimatic Unisystem) model interesting... characters with less 'stuff' have a greater amount of, essentially, luck points.

Which really helps capture the scrappy sidekick who somehow manages to survive all sorts of badness.

I love Cinematic Unisystem.

 

[Wormwood]

I love Cinematic Unisystem.

Listen to this man. He is wise.

 

[Wolfspider]

Listen to this man. He is wise.

Awww. You say the sweetest things!

I really need to get my Unisystem game back on track. Been distracted lately by D&D and Star Wars and Sidewinder. It's high time for some vamp-slayin' and zombie-stompin'!

 

[Wormwood]

I really need to get my Unisystem game back on track. Been distracted lately by D&D and Star Wars and Sidewinder. It's high time for some vamp-slayin' and zombie-stompin'!

And I need to get over my 4e obsession and give (cinematic) Dungeons & Zombies a try

 

[Will]

I wish I liked Unisystem's dice system more. I should poke at it again and see if I can warm up to it. Eh

 

[Kishin]

*Maybe* will, not just 'will', but either way, an unprepared Wizard is most likely toast. There is balance, right there. I'm not saying it's 'perfect balance', or 'always balanced', or 'balanced in all possible situations', but it is a kind of balance, and it was quite deliberately retained from earlier editions for that reason.

IMO, this is like waiting for a former heavyweight boxing champion to stumble out of a bar sauced, and then catching him upside the head in an alley with a sledgehammer. Aside from the fact that's there never an unprepared wizard, its become clear with the passing of editions that the above form of balancing didn't work. I agree with corollary of 'balanced in all possible situations' (this is pretty much almost an unobtainable goal), but it at least strive for balance in the default situation.

I'm sorry. Your criticism is not supported by the reality of the game design. This version is based on video games, the older versions are based on books. I don't like it. It has nothing to do with being condescending unless stating a truth people don't like to hear is condescending.

Your delivery is what's condescending, and its only getting moreso as this thread goes on.

Also, please link to me to a direct statement from Mike Mearls, Andy Collins, or anyone on the Flywheel team saying that 4E's design is based off video games while older versions are based on books. Until then, that's just, as was said by someone else, your opinion.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Awww. You say the sweetest things!

Aahhh, Get a room already, fellows!

 

[PeterWeller]

Why? Is it not true? I doubt greatly that you could disprove what I am saying. This generation of people read less and play video games and watch T.V. more. If you are going to design a game, you have to take this into account.

How can you even begin to make this argument when we live in a world where multi-volume fantasy epics regularly see the top of the New York Times' lists, and the Harry Potter series forced the creation of a whole new category? Fantasy didn't even have its own category when D&D came out.

Sure, fantasy fiction was a great influence on D&D, but the mechanical influence was miniatures war-gaming. I get your point about "balance of purpose," but you're attributing those purposes incorrectly. OD&D balanced the game by the party, not by the character because OD&D came out of a paradigm where balanced groups faced off against one another. It didn't matter if one member of the group was more powerful than another, as long as the two groups were roughly similar in power.