D&D 4E 4e: the new paradigm

[lutecius]

i.e. gamist/abstraction/evil over immersion/simulation/believability

Now that we know more about 4e and since the designers came out about it (sort of), I think it is safe to say that the new fun and balance came at the cost of some believability issues (at least for some of us)
So it comes down to whether it bothers you or not. I don't think there has been a poll yet.


me: hurts
I know the previous editions had some counterintuitive rules too, like the added abstraction of hit points and AC or the fire-and-forget spells, but I was hoping 4e would actually fix those issues. Instead it seems to have an even more gamist approach (or is it narrativist?)
No matter how you justify the mechanics, the in-game explanation feels like an afterthought.


As for the thread, instead of yet another debate over how you could or could not rationalize the new rules, my question is more whether it was absolutely necessary to drop simulation for simplicity, balance or fun tactical options.
Are the two approaches that incompatible? More specifically:
- Isn’t there any other way to balance mundane classes vs spell-casters than the per encounter martial powers?
- couldn’t powers make more sense than “teleport or heal every time you off someone, just because you’re a striker or leader” and still be cool? really, i’ve seen Magic cards with more narrative consistency.

Those 2 are the worst offenders for me, but there are surely others, like how would you have fixed HP depletion and the ensuing rest periods without the 2nd wind mechanic?
Or why would AC as damage reduction bog down or imbalance the game?

 

[Lanefan]

I disagree with just about every point raised by the original poster but still find myself arriving at the same conclusion...

I think the things you're trying to fix (e.g. HP depletion and subsequent resting) are not problems in the first place. You seem to want to keep the speedy pace of play that 4e seems to suggest but by using different means to get there, where I'd rather see the pace slowed down to allow more realism and party caution back in, along with the idea of wise resource management.

We voted the same "it hurts", but for opposite reasons.

Lanefan

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I think there is a paradigm shift but it is not what you see it as.

I see it as this:

3.5 mechanics/rules has its leanings more towards world-building/simulation. Where the rules and mechanics are the strict and true laws of that world.

4e mechanics/rules has its leanings more towards narrative/story-building. Where the rules and mechanics are there to allow players to influence and engage in a narrative storyline through a world not as heavily dependent on strict rules to govern the way it works.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

What I've seen of the 4e rules are just odd. It's like they took the GNS triangle and chopped off the corners at G & N then stuck them together to make the new edition. It was built using a mechanics-first gamist rule system and you're expected to make the in-game fluff match the mechanics via narrativist practices.

It's enough to make my head hurt trying to figure out how to build an internally consistent world from the ruleset of the game. The only way to make it work is via narrativism, but I'm just not a narrativist. Considering the narrativist elements of the Storyteller system made me want to hang the creators with their own intestines rather frequently.

I mean with 3e I COULD create an internally consistent world starting from the rules. It was a bizarre world nothing like our own but in it's own context everything made sense. The 4e rules look like they don't even make a concession it's just "HERE RULES HAVE FUN!" with no attempt to explain them in an in-game context at all.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I guess different strokes for different folks, I personally adore Storytelling narrative elements, hell one of my first semi-Houserules is to change the term Per-Encounter to Per-Scene and use the Storytelling definition.

Probably explains my love of 4e since it is for story-driven, narrative plotlines and campaigns.

 

[mach1.9pants]

One of my (lurker) players is less keen on the 4E direction than the rest of us. However he has said to me that he is happy with the lack of simulationism after a little epiphany. I am happy that we can narratively describe the martial/non-magic powers with enough of a nod to realism to satisfy. However he has decided to take the 'martial' power as such- a source of power (a la Bo9S, I suppose) that allows the martial to push slightly (not fireball, for example) beyond the real world norm. NPC loosers, I mean, NPC warrior types just don't have this 'connection' with the martial power source. So more power to him, I said, and I will feed on that idea by making some NPC warrior types as classed fighters but with little or no powers. They just don't have the strong connection his PC has (he is a fighter player through and through, until he moved to warblade ).
I, personally, have no problem with the paradigm but see it. Bring on narrativist DnD!

 

[Kwalish Kid]

What I've seen of the 4e rules are just odd. It's like they took the GNS triangle and chopped off the corners at G & N then stuck them together to make the new edition. It was built using a mechanics-first gamist rule system and you're expected to make the in-game fluff match the mechanics via narrativist practices.

I don't know if that makes any sense at all. It certainly doesn't make any sense from the standard definitions of GNS.

Frankly, it's time to abandon the GNS terminology. (Heck, in the thread that the original poster pointed to, the designers don't use simulation in the same way that the standard GNS definitions lay out. I suspect because the GNS framework and everything that grows out of it has little to do with how they work.)

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that if there is no narrative, there really is no game. But that "narrative" is not the narrative of GNS. (I suspect that the only games that correspond in any way to the GNS models are those which are designed with them in mind. And I suspect that not a single one of them is a simulationist game or a gamist game.)

 

[VBMEW-01]

Easy choice for me.

I've always been a Story First kind of DM, and its gotten real old getting my hand slammed in the door by a myriad of rules that say: you can't do that! That break the rules!

Rules have their place, but for me and mine that place ha always been second. And as far as it goes, I really haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that anything is really broken just yet. We've only had bits and pieces so far, and those are ethereal at best. I'll reserve final judgment for when I have the books in hand and a table full of players in front of me.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

I probably didn't really explain it well enough. Let me try to rephrase this. I'd always associated the GNS theory with a chart I saw when it was first introduced to me. The chart is an equilateral triangle with corners labeled G/N/S. 4e would be considered a point on this triangle like a radar graph. I see the playspace of 4e as set by a combination of the rules and the tone as existing somewhere close to the G-N edge opposite Simulationist with a position maybe halfway to the Gamist point. Whereas previous editions were about halfway to the Gamist corner with a position on the simulationist side but closer to the center where the elements blur than the new edition.

 

[baberg]

It's enough to make my head hurt trying to figure out how to build an internally consistent world from the ruleset of the game.

Do you think you're jumping the gun a little bit here? None of us (unless you're a playtester) have been exposed with the entire ruleset of the game, so how can you say that you can't make an internally consistent world within those unknown rules?

I understand your GNS triangle description, and I wonder if WotC didn't make a conscious decision to move towards the gamist/narrative vertices because, well let's face it, other games do the simulation thing a heckuva lot better. I'm reminded of Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review of Tabula Rasa with respect to pleasing different audiences (MMORPG people and FPS fans). To quote:

"It smacks of a typical problem in the medium in that rather than focusing on pleasing a particular audience, designers try to please as many people as possible and just end up giving a blankly mediocre experience for all"