D&D 4E 4e: the new paradigm

[I'm A Banana]

There is little reason to think that the static difficulties for certain environments will not remain in 4E. The difference is that, if the DM wants players to have a chance to escape a certain situation, the obvious environmental difficulties are not the only challenges to overcome. For example, characters can climb something easier than a sheer, slick wall and then use other skills to continue to escape.

Sure, but that's not really the point I'm making. I'm talking about the shift from "Here is a skill. Here is what you can do with your skill." to "Here is your skill. You figure out what to do with your skill."

I like the change, I think it's a cool element of creative thinking. "Okay, I'm trained in History. How can history save me from this situation!" I'd imagine there would be some static DC's for various things too, but your use of the skill depends more on how you use it than on the skill itself. There was no option to use History to escape a city in 3e because 3e thought about the things you would know if you had Knowledge (history), gave you a summarry, and told the DM to make stuff up. I'm famously not a fan of that tactic.

4E does not limit actions like this to once per encounter, it limits special narrative effects surrounding tripping (supposedly) to once per encounter. Players can always continue to trip using STR/DEX vs. Reflex Defense.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I noted up above that Trip being once per encounter doesn't mean you literally have lost any ability to trip. This is one of the poster children for what I'm talking about: that 4e is about what you do (you trip no more than once per encounter) and that 3e is about what you are (you can try and trip whenever you decide to).

So once more: Trip being a per-encounter power shows that 4e is more concerned with your actual use of the ability than your theoretical capacity to actually use the ability than 3e, where trip as an at-will power shows that 3e was concerned with your capacity to actually use the ability. Presumably, in 4e, you don't somehow magically in-character loose the ability to trip people. You just can't do it anymore on a narrative level in the same way.

I have ceased to be surprised at the failure of players on this board to apply a minimal amount of imagination to 4E.

Don't be a jerk.

Having unique options is not the totality of 4E. It's the manner in which all PCs have these abilities that contribute more-or-less equally to the drama of the game.

I don't understand your point, here. You were responding to me saying telling MO that 4e isn't unqiue in the fact that each class has special things you can do with it. You seem to be trying to clarify his point to indicate that 4e has classes that contirbute more or less equally to the drama of the game. I'm back to my original point: 4e is not unique in this regard.

4e does some new stuff with specifically the capacity of magic to be a panacea vs. 3e, but that has almost nothing to do with the classes, and almost nothing to do with what MO said about each class having a unique capacity.

And absolutely nothing to do with the narrative-character balancing act I'm talking about.

4E rules seem to involve ensuring that the characters built by the system have an impact on scences that is based on their creation. That seems optimal.

I'm still not entirely sure I'm making sense of what you're saying. 4e rules say that characters influence encounters based on what actions they take -- you trip once, you power attack as much as you want, and at some point in your series of encounters you go nova and blow away the enemy. 3e rules say that characters influence encounters based on what actions they are capable of taking -- you can trip, you can grapple, sometimes you can cast a spell, you might be able to power attack, etc.

4e specifically gets rid of the 3e problem of accidental suck (at least, for now) in this, because it's designed around what you actually do. However, accidental suck was in-character, and you can get rid of or mitigate that problem without removing all of the in-character meaning from the ability, so I think it's a baby-with-the-bathwater scenario.

And for clarity purposes:

Accidental Suck = The phenomenon of building a character you want to play who is nonetheless frustratingly ineffective when it comes to doing what the game revolves around (such as building a diplomonster in a 3e game where another party member plays an enchanter, another a telepath, and where the play revolves around exploring dungeons, or building almost any LA +2 or greater monster character in 3e).

 

[Thyrwyn]

I don't see anything narrativist about per-encounter or per-day powers, since they are IMO gamist elements and nothing else (unless you choose to describe them in-character, but as noted elsewhere, some of them may be a bit difficult to describe storywise).

I think this is a really key point. The nature/explainability/'mere existance' of pre-encounter and per-day abilities is probably the biggest source of contention/discussion regarding the new rules that we have seen so far.

One camp wants a clear connection between player action/experience and character action/ experience. Any game affecting action dictated by the player has to have a mirrored world-affecting character action. For them, the player experience cannot be divorced from the character experience. If the player hasn't said it, the character hasn't done it - and vice versa. To them, the character is the vehicle through which they interact with the game world, and the story is the result of that interaction. Anything that intereferes with this correspondence takes them out of the world and into the game. They can accept a rules set that limits the chance a powerful tactic has of succeeding as long they can dictate when they try. This is why Primal says such elements are gamist, in the sense that the effect they have on the overall player experience is that of 'you are playing a game', not 'you are playing a character'.

Primal (and others) - is that a fair summation?

Another camp sees said elements as narrative because they give the player the ability to dictate the effect that their character has on the story. To them, the direct correspondence between player action and character action is not as necessary - they want a correspondence between player action and character impact, which is a slightly different focus. To them, the character is the vehicle through which they participate in the story, which happens to take place in the game world. How the character's interact with the world is secondary - to how they interact with the story. They can accept a rules set that limits the number of times a powerful tactic can be used, if it works when they use it. This is why Kwalish Kid says such elements are narrativist, not gamist - because the effect they have on the overall player experience is 'you are telling a story'.

Kwalish Kid (and others) - is that a fair summation?

Kamikaze Midget - I agree with you RE: Accidental Suck, though I am not sure what you mean by it being 'in character' - could you explain?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Thyrwyn, I think that's a pretty good summation, very similar to what I was saying about the character-story continuum. I don't see them as adamant camps, since both are really required to have an enjoyable game, but I do see them as different focuses.

Kamikaze Midget - I agree with you RE: Accidental Suck, though I am not sure what you mean by it being 'in character' - could you explain?

Well, sometimes a character can't effectively contribute to a given task. That's entirely consistent and it does add depth to a character. If your reason for never taking ranks in Climb is because you think your character is afraid of heights, then they should be ineffective when the party is climbing the mountain peak.

That's not really accidental suck, though, that's more Intentional Suck: It's kind of fun for you to suck at something if you made a concious descision to suck at it.

Where it becomes accidental is if, unbeknownst to you, the campaign is all about climbing various mountains and trees, and your height-paranoid character is suddenly incompatible with most of the adventures and just becomes a drain on the party. It's realistic and it's in-character, but it's really annoying.

You've gone from Fun and Interesting Challenge to Accidental Suck in a hurry in that case.

4e seems to want to solve the problem of Accidental Suck by making sure that everyone has basic competency in anything everyone is expected to do. 4e doesn't really care if your character is afraid of heights -- he's going to be able to climb a mountain pretty freakin' well, regardless. 4e doesn't say "you can't play a character who is afraid of heights." It wouldn't. That'd be silly. Instead, it says "Even if your character is afraid of heights, he can still climb the mountain well. It's up to you to figure out why this happens in-character. In the metagame, this happens because no one wants to haul your 300 lb fighter in full plate around on a chain harnass for half the campaign, and you don't really want to be that burden, either."

3e was blissfully unaware of the problem of Accidental Suck, and used the ol' "Make Stuff Up" rule when it became aware of it. "Well, if your party has an agoraphobe, you probably don't want to send them into the mountains more than once or twice, because it wouldn't be fun." The player's choice became the DM's limitation, not the player's. Which isn't really fair to the DMs, either (though I kind of loved these limits, because I improv a lot, limits like that are useful for me).

And, it needs to be repeated, I'm a BIG FAN of the new skills system. I think the idea of automatically increasing skills fits the genre, is as buyable as automatically increasing HP and attack bonuses, and that heroes with a fear of heights are enough of a special case that I don't mind house ruling around it, if necessary.

I do think that we are giving up increased in-character selection for increased metagame ease, though, and I'm not sure I'm as happy with that in every case as I am with the skills.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I don't understand your point, here. You were responding to me saying telling MO that 4e isn't unqiue in the fact that each class has special things you can do with it. You seem to be trying to clarify his point to indicate that 4e has classes that contirbute more or less equally to the drama of the game. I'm back to my original point: 4e is not unique in this regard.

I'm not saying that 4E is unique, but it's unfair to simply say that 4E characters have unique abilities like other games do. 4E characters have unique abilities (for combat) that are apportioned so that they don't have "built-in suck" of the type that comes from making characters pick non-combat options over combat ones.

4e does some new stuff with specifically the capacity of magic to be a panacea vs. 3e, but that has almost nothing to do with the classes, and almost nothing to do with what MO said about each class having a unique capacity.

And absolutely nothing to do with the narrative-character balancing act I'm talking about.

It has everything to do about it. The siloing of abilities, as the commitment to not punish players for having their character fill their combat role, and the commitment to share equally in the drama influencing actions that once only magic used to have helps ensure that characters are taking part in combat based on their construction. A wizard takes part in the fight as a wizard, rather than as a sub-par warrior with a crossbow. A cleric can take part in the fight as a holy warrior or not, depending on the assigning of the appropriate powers in character creation.

Thus 4E helps to ensure that the character as created is what is played to its fullest extent.

I'm still not entirely sure I'm making sense of what you're saying. 4e rules say that characters influence encounters based on what actions they take -- you trip once, you power attack as much as you want, and at some point in your series of encounters you go nova and blow away the enemy. 3e rules say that characters influence encounters based on what actions they are capable of taking -- you can trip, you can grapple, sometimes you can cast a spell, you might be able to power attack, etc.

There's no difference between the editions here. In both you influence the encounter based on the actions you take and the actions that you can take are based on the character created. However, the story of the combat in 4E is much more than merely the dice rolling to simulate physical actions.

4e specifically gets rid of the 3e problem of accidental suck (at least, for now) in this, because it's designed around what you actually do. However, accidental suck was in-character, and you can get rid of or mitigate that problem without removing all of the in-character meaning from the ability, so I think it's a baby-with-the-bathwater scenario.

So you really want to see D&D as a game where player's control the game only through character action, in a world simulated by game mechanics. Fair enough.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Another camp sees said elements as narrative because they give the player the ability to dictate the effect that their character has on the story. To them, the direct correspondence between player action and character action is not as necessary - they want a correspondence between player action and character impact, which is a slightly different focus. To them, the character is the vehicle through which they participate in the story, which happens to take place in the game world. How the character's interact with the world is secondary - to how they interact with the story. They can accept a rules set that limits the number of times a powerful tactic can be used, if it works when they use it. This is why Kwalish Kid says such elements are narrativist, not gamist - because the effect they have on the overall player experience is 'you are telling a story'.

Kwalish Kid (and others) - is that a fair summation?

Pretty darn good. Only I try not to use terms like "gamist" and "narrativist". I see all rpgs (as played) as telling a story (though perhaps not one with the standard scheme of traditional narratives). For me, the place of the character in the game-world is the place of the character in the story, since I really don't care about the game-world except through the story.

I feel that the narrative approach to limiting abilities is an elegant way to get around the problem of character ability disparity. For example, in a more realistic approach to game-worlds, characters with access to magical abilities should far outclass those without such abilities.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not saying that 4E is unique, but it's unfair to simply say that 4E characters have unique abilities like other games do. 4E characters have unique abilities (for combat) that are apportioned so that they don't have "built-in suck" of the type that comes from making characters pick non-combat options over combat ones.

Well, that kind of siloing was begun in 3e. The idea that role playing and mechanics should be separate was very prominent in the edition. RP requirements for prestige classes, for instance, were never an excuse to make the prestige class more powerful, and things like Spellfire were (presumably) balanced for PC use despite it's obvious narrative purpose. Rarity was never an excuse for power, and if something had a mechanical effect, it was balanced on the mechanical scale, not based on it's supposed role in the world.

4e is refining the idea a little more, but 4e isn't inventing the idea of not having to choose combat powers over noncombat powers.

3e, AFAICT, just didn't ever think that Climb and History and Arcana would be considered as important as combat powers like Attack Bonus.

It has everything to do about it. The siloing of abilities, as the commitment to not punish players for having their character fill their combat role, and the commitment to share equally in the drama influencing actions that once only magic used to have helps ensure that characters are taking part in combat based on their construction. A wizard takes part in the fight as a wizard, rather than as a sub-par warrior with a crossbow. A cleric can take part in the fight as a holy warrior or not, depending on the assigning of the appropriate powers in character creation.

Thus 4E helps to ensure that the character as created is what is played to its fullest extent.

Yes, 4e refines 3e's commitment to divide combat and non-combat stuff so that you don't have (at least as much) Accidental Suck. But in 3e, Accidental Suck rarely came from the influence of non-combat stuff, and more from the influence of wonky feats, the Math Problem (unless you're optimized, you can't hit it!), multiclassing incompatibility, the emphasis on eking out ever +1, the Christmas Tree, and a host of other hidden glitches.

So 4e's refining of the Combat/Noncombat divide doesn't, by itself, eliminate 3e's problem of Accidental Suck. It's a more complex problem than that.

There's also the fact that combat happens in-character, and that your character's abilities should reflect your Intentional Powers, and your Intentional Suck as well.

For clarity:

Intentional Suck = A place where you have deliberately chosen to not enhance your character because that makes the character more interesting to you. When this comes up in a limited capacity, it is lots of fun. When this comes up over and over again, it becomes Accidental Suck.
Example: A telepath who has taken a vow of nonviolence. Great in an intrigue-heavy humanoid-PC laden political campaign. In the event that a combat occurs once in a while, he sucks, and it is fun. In the event that the campaign happens to focus on a dungeon crawl with gibbering horrors from the Far Realm, he sucks too much, and it is not fun.

But more to the point with what I was discussing, the Trip power being per-encounter, for instance, doesn't help anyone play any character to any full extent. Nor is it a case of combat/noncombat siloing. It is, in part, a specific point on the Character - Story continuum for RPG's in that it emphasizes Story (what happens -- you trip once per encounter) over Character (who it happens to -- you can try and trip whenever you want to aim for someone's feet).

That continuum doesn't have much to do with the combat/noncombat division, nor with each class being viable in combat.

There's no difference between the editions here. In both you influence the encounter based on the actions you take and the actions that you can take are based on the character created. However, the story of the combat in 4E is much more than merely the dice rolling to simulate physical actions.

These things are contradictory. Is there a difference between editions? Is that difference that 4e's combat is "much more than merely the dice rolling to simulate physical actions?" If so, how is 4e's combat more?

Because from where I'm sitting, one of 4e's central paradigms, which it also applies to combat, is that the events that happen are the most important thing. You can't trip every round in 4e because that would be boring or dumb or generally not make a good story. Even though you don't magically loose the ability to trip every round in-character, the rules say you can only do it once. 3e was more concerned with behaving in-character, so the rules said that, acting in-character, you can do it as much as your character would tend to do it.

Both approaches have their problems and compromises.

So you really want to see D&D as a game where player's control the game only through character action, in a world simulated by game mechanics. Fair enough.

Don't put words in my mouth.

 

[apoptosis]

So far, I would guess:

Power gamers: meh on 4E, due to having to relearn the system, but intrigued by prospect of more broken stuff to find

Buttkickers: love 4E, due to polished combat rules, more and varied ways to kick butt

Tacticians: meh on 4E, lots more combat options, but fewer ways to avoid/short-circuit combat, inherent vagueness of conflict resolution system

Character actors: hate 4E, because of dumbing down of skill system, siloing of combat vs noncombat powers, more narrowly-focused classes

Storytellers: love 4E, due to n*rr*tivist elements like per-encounter and per-day powers, flexible definition of encounters/milestones, new conflict resolution mechanic

Specialists: meh on 4E, depends on whether chosen schtick is well-supported

Casual gamers: meh on 4E, depends on whether it's easy to use

I would say that Storytellers probably dont love 4E as we haven't seen any mechanics that really facilitate story or tie characters to a narrative.

The change of power usage really is not helpful or detrimental. I am not familiar enough with the new conflict resolution to make an opinion.

If encounters and milestones were mechanically connected to the aims/goals of the characters/players and background of the narrative then it would be pro storyteller.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

But more to the point with what I was discussing, the Trip power being per-encounter, for instance, doesn't help anyone play any character to any full extent.

Actually, it does because it eliminates certain game-threatening mechanics from play. It's not enough to look at powers at a character-by-character level, one must look at them at the level of how that power influences the game. (I played a trip & grapple monster that rocked, making the game more difficult for some other players, until about 12th level, when the PC started sucking.)

Nor is it a case of combat/noncombat siloing. It is, in part, a specific point on the Character - Story continuum for RPG's in that it emphasizes Story (what happens -- you trip once per encounter) over Character (who it happens to -- you can try and trip whenever you want to aim for someone's feet).

But here you're back to the big myth about this game: that you can't trip whenever you'd like. You can trip, you just can't expect the benefit of the trip power whenever you'd like.

These things are contradictory. Is there a difference between editions? Is that difference that 4e's combat is "much more than merely the dice rolling to simulate physical actions?" If so, how is 4e's combat more?

There is no difference in that both "rules say that characters influence encounters based on what actions they are capable of taking". It is impossible to say otherwise. It is simply that we know, ahead of time, that certain actions will be limited in their effectiveness in order to have a story that will allow us to avoid certain gross disparities of power in a game where these should be absent.

Because from where I'm sitting, one of 4e's central paradigms, which it also applies to combat, is that the events that happen are the most important thing. You can't trip every round in 4e because that would be boring or dumb or generally not make a good story. Even though you don't magically loose the ability to trip every round in-character, the rules say you can only do it once.

Again, the myth.

Without the myth, you can't really make the point that there is some huge difference in the games. That is:

3e was more concerned with behaving in-character, so the rules said that, acting in-character, you can do it as much as your character would tend to do it.

This does not change. It's just that the extent to which the player can control the story more than other players is less dependent on the mechanics of character creation. Or rather, it is just as dependent and the character creation mechanisms work to prevent undue control of the story.

Don't put words in my mouth.

I'm just trying to understand your position. To me, it seems that you want players to only control the story through the action of their characters. That's not a horrible approach to gaming, but it is obviously going to limit the impact of certain players in the game. In such an approach, there has to be explicit management of the game in order to avoid problems of player control and impact. In 4E, much of this management is up-front. This management may end up promoting certain means of conflict resolution, but that may be what some players are looking for.

And I'm sorry for being jerky earlier.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

From a simulationist point of view, these are the special moves of advanced training. Instead of a simple parry and strike, it's a difficult and rarely used parry followed by a surprise flying lunge (actual example from my fencing days). It takes some effort to set up right and it won't catch anyone off guard a second time.

Except that it will catch them off guard the very next morning. Even the same opponent. Even another Warlord. After the refresh cycle (in point of fact, only after the refresh cycle), the exact same trick will work against another Warlord, who is ostensibly the one with the keen eye towards that kind of thing and probably shouldn't fall for it again, possibly ever.

It's the mental gymnastics required to justify this kind of thing. Not just once, not necessarily once for each power, but once for each power each time it is used. If you approach rationalization of 'ammo for martial powers' in anything but a gamist perspective, you will constantly run afoul of this. There is nothing beyond 'game balance' to explain it. If you were able to try it as often as you wanted with a certain percentage of success, that would be fine. But an absolute restriction on usage once a day has no narrative context. Using your fencing example, you can try that same move as often as your stamina allows, and even on the same opponent in the same match, there is a chance it could work a second time, if they are winded, and can't properly block it. Alternatively, if you attempted it five times in rapid succession, your opponent may be overwhelmed and unable to respond, resulting in one or two lucky blocks, but three or four successes.

As it stands now, it's completely binary. Either the opponent has a 0% chance of defending against it before you have used it, or a 100% chance of defending against it after you have used it for the day. And then, it resets for the exact same opponent. "Well, you found a different weakness to exploit". Ok, how many are there to exploit? Would you say a novice fencer has more or fewer weaknesses to exploit than an experienced fencer? Because daily martial abilities work the same against a 1st level Fighter and a 30th level Fighter. The skill of the opponent has no effect on the usage (barring 30th level powers, which I would doubt will outright cancel other powers).

The only way these will work is if you treat them exactly the same as Monopoly rules, where no one tries to discern why you can only move in one direction, and can't cut across the board. Of course, Monopoly isn't trying to simulate the same thing that D&D is.

 

[Storm-Bringer]

But here you're back to the big myth about this game: that you can't trip whenever you'd like. You can trip, you just can't expect the benefit of the trip power whenever you'd like.

This is like saying "that you can't start your car whenever you like. You can start your car, but you can't expect the benefit of turning the key in the ignition whenever you'd like'.

I mean, what is the 'trip power'? The ability to knock someone off their feet, right? In the chaos of melee, the first person you trip instantly transmits the information to every other opponent so you are unable to knock their feet out from under them again?

There is no difference in that both "rules say that characters influence encounters based on what actions they are capable of taking". It is impossible to say otherwise. It is simply that we know, ahead of time, that certain actions will be limited in their effectiveness in order to have a story that will allow us to avoid certain gross disparities of power in a game where these should be absent.

Something like the Bodak's ability to drop an opponent to 0hp is a gross disparity of power. We are talking about 'trip' here. I defy anyone to show how that is a gross disparity of power.

This does not change. It's just that the extent to which the player can control the story more than other players is less dependent on the mechanics of character creation. Or rather, it is just as dependent and the character creation mechanisms work to prevent undue control of the story.

But is that a problem with the rules, or the particular group of players? Is there really something inherent to the rules for Climb that will render everyone else at the table ineffective in every situation? Is Power Attack so overwhelmingly potent that everyone else can leave their weapons at home?

I'm just trying to understand your position. To me, it seems that you want players to only control the story through the action of their characters. That's not a horrible approach to gaming, but it is obviously going to limit the impact of certain players in the game. In such an approach, there has to be explicit management of the game in order to avoid problems of player control and impact.

That is the job of the DM.

It sounds glib, but that really is the bottom line. While that requires a certain portion of fiat, 4e hasn't lessened that, only changed its focus. So instead of allowing or disallowing certain actions (there simply are times when a History check is inappropriate, no matter how cleverly worded), the DM is now having to alter the world on the fly, and explain why the players can't use some ability more than once per day. A trade off, to be sure, but more like a straight across trade than a trade-up.

And I'm sorry for being jerky earlier.[/QUOTE]