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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I can't help but agree with this. I have the lingering dread that there are a lot of video-gamisms in my D&D and I don't like it. It is just the nagging feeling that video games should do what they do and RPGs should do what they do. Maybe I'm just getting old but this has been my single biggest problem with 4e.

To some this is no doubt ridiculous but I can see it being an issue when it comes to the principle of immersion. When combat becomes formulaic it really detracts from the game.

I am not really seeing whether you complain about earlier editions or 4E here. Forumalic combat definitely seems to be somethnig that existed in previous editions of D&D. I am not sure yet if it turns out that the 4E combat will just be a more complex formula, but I am not seeing it become more or worse...
The "Charge, Attack, Full Attack, Full Attack, Cleave, Full Attack, Full Attack, Move Attack, Full Attack, Full Attack" formula of 3E for fighters is certainly a very boring way of "formulaic" combat. The "I cast magic missile/fireball" of Wizards or "I stand back and delay my action until something happens worthy of my spell slots" is definitely formualic, too...

 

[Darth Cyric]

"I, Krunk, barbarian of the Frozen Wastes, smash the traitor's jaw with a vicious kick from my boot."
"Actually, Dave, you have to roll on a random unarmed attack table. You might not be able to do that."

Gah, you just HAD to bring back memories of the random unarmed attack table.

*shudder*

 

[Falling Icicle]

But the previous versions of D&D were examples of a game being shaped around roleplaying. Why should a wizard be able to Meteor Swarm some guy for 50d8 damage while the warrior does 1d10+8? Well, clearly because the wizard is a wizard, and that's what wizards do.

So what you're saying is that Wizards should be flat out far superior to Fighters? Why? I've always been a big fan of Wizards, but I don't think that should be the case. In fact, earlier editions of D&D always strived for class *balance*. I never read a disclaimer anywhere that said "If you don't play a Wizard, you will be a weaker character."

4E is an example of a game being shaped without roleplaying. Every class shares essentially identical abilities. They all have their at-will foozle, their per-encounter foozle, and per-day foozle. You can call it a spell, a talent, a knack, or whatever you want, but the rules don't care. If you blanked out every class-specific word in the documents, you'd be left with classes that are difficult to distinguish. You could presume that the person doing the ranged damage is a ranger or a mage, while the people doing melee damage are the fighters and paladins, but that's about as far as you'd get.

Actually, I don't agree with this at all, and I've been one of the more skeptical, anti-4e-leaning people on these boards. Even looking at the 1st level character abilities, they all have a very different feel to them. I could certainly tell you that Cleave wouldn't be a Wizard ability or that Holy Word wouldn't belong to Warlocks. These abilities may be structured in a more uniform way, but they do very different things. Fighters excel in melee, Wizards get cool utility spells and can shoot force, fire, ice, etc.

I also think that we shouldn't take too much from the 1st level characters. I suspect that the differences in approach, style and effects available to different classes will widen considerably as you gain levels. Just from the glimpse we've seen of higher level Wizard spells, I don't think there will be any mistaking them from other classes. Fighters will never get a spell that conjures bigbies hands to grab people and slam them together, or put people in Telekinetic Spheres or go Invisible. The staple Wizard abilities are still there. The only thing that's changed is the mechanics and resource management behind them.

What do you get for a lifetime's study of magic? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for faithful service to a god? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for skulking in the shadows since childhood? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for daily battle from the moment you were old enough to hold a sword? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. For example, did you consider Clerics, Druids and Wizards to all be the same thing in 3e? After all, they all got the same thing as they leveled: spells per day, spells per day, and more spells per day. But wait a minute. There's alot more to it than that! There's also what they can do with their spells that differentiated them, even though they used the same basic mechanics and resource management. Wizards, Clerics and Druids were *very* different, just based upon the difference in spell selection between them. There's nothing different here, except that all classes now use the same basic mechanics and resource management now, not just the spellcasters. Everyone gets at-will, per-encounter and per-day abilities, but those abilities do very different things.

Say you want to be a Shifter. You want to be a druid who's never in his natural form, but always flying as a bird, sneaking as a goblin, fighting as a griffin. How's he going to fit into 4E? Well, let's see what he can do.

At-Will Abilities:

Bear Claw: Attack vs. AC, 1d8+1 slashing damage as you grow bear claws and attack. Rar!

Per-Encounter Abilities:

Cheetah Speed: You move an extra 3 squares until the beginning of your next round. Zoom!

Per-Day Abilities:

Lion's Might: You turn into a lion for 2 rounds. This gives you +4 strength. Roar!

Um. Kay. But where's the flying as a bird, sneaking as a goblin, or fighting as a griffin? Those things don't really fit into a per-encounter setup, they're nebulous things that last for hours (traveling as a bird), take place outside of fights (sneaking as a goblin), or just aren't included in the designer's list of what the class should have in its abilities (griffins). If you don't feel that your Shifter wants to have bear claws, or run faster, or boost its strength, tough. In order to fit into the 'game first, roleplaying last' model, each class needs to have clearly-defined abilities that are carefully balanced so as not to make the other players unhappy, so you can't have anything so freeform as a blank check to turn into random monsters. Now your character concept sucks, shut up and reroll a wizard and cast Magic Missile every round for your 2d4 damage.

Actually, I think you're oversimplifying things. There may well be a Wild Shape Encounter or Daily power for Druids. Remember, the stuff we saw was 1st level. More powerful abilities are available at higher levels, and I'm sure the same will be true for Druids.

Fine for a game, bad for a roleplaying game. Why? Shouldn't a real roleplayer be able to roleplay no matter what the game mechanics are? Yes, but if you go around telling people that you're the exiled son of a prince who had to live on the harsh back streets of a city of druids and assassinates people with secrets you learned from the trees themselves, you'll look a bit stupid in the first fight when your abilities are distinctly un-treeish.

"Leafildor, quickly, use your connection to the trees to make that oak there attack!"
"Um, I can't. That's a once per day thing."
"But you said you were the fallen prince of trees!"
"Well, I am! Once a day until the start of my next round."

Again, I could say the same thing about 3rd edition.

"Leafildor, quickly, use your connection to the trees to make that oak there attack!"
"Um, I can't. I didn't prepare that spell today."
"What?! Well, okay, why don't you call upon the spirits of the sky to strike our foes with lightning!"
"Sorry, I only had one of those prepared today and I already used it!"
"So what good are you then?"
"Well, I can whack them with my shielleglah quarterstaff!"
"....."

 

[Aus_Snow]

4E is an example of a game being shaped without roleplaying. Every class shares essentially identical abilities. They all have their at-will foozle, their per-encounter foozle, and per-day foozle. You can call it a spell, a talent, a knack, or whatever you want, but the rules don't care. If you blanked out every class-specific word in the documents, you'd be left with classes that are difficult to distinguish. You could presume that the person doing the ranged damage is a ranger or a mage, while the people doing melee damage are the fighters and paladins, but that's about as far as you'd get.

I have not much love for 4e, but I'll have to concede that you're dead wrong here. The classes do not 'share essentially identical abilities'. No more than previously, or if so, only barely perhaps. The game has gone from predominantly per day + at will (with per encounter coming in at a later stage,) to universally - as you say, more or less - per day, per encounter and at will. Uh, gee. And?

Come to that, there are only so many ways you can conceivably mix up factors like potential damage over time, odds of attack effectiveness based on circumstances, etc. 4e looks to be very organised in terms of categorising such things, and more. In its favour, this means designers and developers will probably have less trouble creating further rules and integrating them effectively.

What do you get for a lifetime's study of magic? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for faithful service to a god? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for skulking in the shadows since childhood? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.
What do you get for daily battle from the moment you were old enough to hold a sword? At-will abilities, per-encounter abilities, per-day abilities.

See above. However, as someone pointed out already, 'Rituals' will probably also play a part in further differentiating classes, not to mention enabling certain possibilities outright. So there's that too.

<--snip--> Fine for a game, bad for a roleplaying game. Why? Shouldn't a real roleplayer be able to roleplay no matter what the game mechanics are? Yes, but if you go around telling people that you're the exiled son of a prince who had to live on the harsh back streets of a city of druids and assassinates people with secrets you learned from the trees themselves, you'll look a bit stupid in the first fight when your abilities are distinctly un-treeish.

Dude. This is totally a class- and level-based system feature. Um, bug. Er, whatever. Matter of taste, is what I'm getting at. Also, nothing to do specifically with 4e, AFAICS.

Can I interest you in some fine point-based system material, good sir? :evil:

 

[AZRogue]

The consolation is, of course, that 3E isn't going anywhere. There are still many people happily playing AD&D out there. Rock on.

 

[Derro]

I am not really seeing whether you complain about earlier editions or 4E here.

I kinda thought that might be a reply. So I put a bit more thought to it.

Sure, it's visible in all editions and many games. But it looks to me like it's being encouraged more by this rule set.

With the powers, and not just the magical ones, being arrayed the way they are there will most likely be more of a tendency to contrive combos that are really effective. To some this might not be a bad thing. More power to 'em. But when every character has this routine that they go through by rote it can get a little stale.

As the GM it's up to you to provide challenges that will shake these routines up but that's not always an easy thing if you're trying to stick to a cohesive story or theme. Not to say it's impossible but it can take a lot of effort. I know I've had to formulate some pretty devious, and sometimes cheesy, scenarios to break over-used combos.

Again, D&D has mostly been about heroic high fantasy so this may be the natural progression. But it is starting to look like heroic high fantasy is the only thing it's going to be able to do. And I say all this with the usual disclaimer. I haven't seen the whole thing yet so I don't know for sure, these are all just gut feelings. But I trust my gut.

It probably looks like a non-issue to most but my hopes would be that the game grows in it's evolution rather than specializes. I'm not looking for a universal system but at least a versatile one. Or is that counter to the commercial goals of the game? Is this effort the attempt to make D&D the brand for this type of game?

I kinda thought it already was.

 

[Darth Cyric]

I haven't seen the whole thing yet so I don't know for sure, these are all just gut feelings. But I trust my gut.

You know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? It's true, you can look it up.

 

[delericho]

4E is an example of a game being shaped without roleplaying. Every class shares essentially identical abilities. They all have their at-will foozle, their per-encounter foozle, and per-day foozle.

It may be that, over the long term, playing different character types feels the same. It may be that this causes the game to lose its charm after a while. This is possible. (And we won't know, one way or the other, until we've been playing the game for a year or two... or not because we got bored.)

But these things have nothing to do with roleplaying. Franlky, by this stage we should be good enough at roleplaying to get that a Fighter is different from a Wizard not because the one has an at-will foozle and the other per-day foozles, but because the nature of those foozles are different - the Fighter wears heavy armour, weilds sharp bits of metal, and gets in at his opponents; the Wizard wears robes, weilds arcane forces beyond the ken of lesser men, and stays out of the way.

 

[Halivar]

4E is an example of a game being shaped without roleplaying.

That's a choice you make at the table.

Nobody stands out in any particular direction; everything's been sanded down to a homogeneous plane.

JMHO, but it sounds (to me) like you want roll-playing crutches for your roleplaying. In 3.5E, there is no frickin' way I can make (by the rules) a bad-*** Ftr-Mu that can go toe-to-toe with either a Ftr or an Mu. Nevertheless, when I play a Ftr-Mu, I'm gonna roleplay a bad-*** because the game (and my character) is, ultimately, what I make it. It's a game of the imagination; so I imagine.

 

[Nytmare]

You know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? It's true, you can look it up.

Was that a fat joke? You big meanie.