D&D 4E 4e: the new paradigm

[MichaelK]

For some reason I can't use the quote function right now.

Anyway, someone said, "I don't see how you can have fun when you're worrying about how things work". Well, to answer the implied question.

Firstly, I multitask. Just like rolling the dice or remembering the rules, thinking about how things work is just another thing I can do alongside having fun.

Secondly, how can you have fun when the world clearly doesn't make sense? It's frustrating.

Thirdly, for me it is fun. Figuring out the economic system of a fantasy world and how it would be influenced by a teleport spell is fun.

My entire group is like this (thankfully, otherwise we'd never be able to game together)

 

[KarinsDad]

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.

Could you quote some examples of this?

I don't see this at all. I see 4E as more gamist, more rules dependent, and less narrative.

 

[1of3]

Could you quote some examples of this?

I don't see this at all. I see 4E as more gamist, more rules dependent, and less narrative.

This topic might be useful:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=220605

 

[Vomax]

Whatever the intent, I am perfectly fine with all these goals, not with the implementation.
That you can only even try a “mundane” manoeuvre exactly once per day or encounter is just too artificial for me.

Likewise, I hate when a narrative device hurts believability in a fiction.

What you have to understand is that your character can "try" to use his daily exploits every second of his waking life, but in order to balance the power levels and provide what is, in the designers' minds, a fun game, your character is only ever going to succeed once per day/extended rest. This doesn't mean that your character sucks at what he does, it just means that whatever specific conditions need to exist in order for you to pull off that maneuver are only going to present themselves roughly once per day.

The paradigm shift in the new edition is that you, the player, have control over the game world to such an extent that you can arbitrarily determine when those conditions are present. A slightly smaller shift is that martial, "mundane" classes should have powers that are at least relatively on a par with those that spellcasters get.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well, I don't know about that. Take the per encounter/day martial powers.
Sure, they work from a narrative point of view. They can't be used ad nauseam like an at will power and they are the character's shtick because they are not available to other classes. So yes it makes these abilities special/cool.

Personally, it ruins my experience more when people are falling asleep at the table since this round of combat will be exactly the same as the round before it except for the wizard. Which is what happens 90% of the time in 3.5e.

"Oh, you mean you are readying an action to attack the next enemy that becomes prone? Then you are waiting for an enemy to provoke an AOO from you with your spiked chain and then tripping them, getting a free attack due to Improved Trip and then hitting them again with your ready action? I didn't see that coming. Wait, I did...you've been doing it every round of combat for 5 levels now."

But I don’t think the designers had this narrative approach in mind when they came up with this mechanism. I may me wrong, but I think the main concern was rather balance and streamlining. ie aligning martial powers with spell-casting

It might have been. And it works. I have yet to see another suggestion that actually balances the classes that is still "realistic".

Whatever the intent, I am perfectly fine with all these goals, not with the implementation.
That you can only even try a “mundane” manoeuvre exactly once per day or encounter is just too artificial for me.

Then suggest an implementation that fixes it without the "artificial" nature of these rules. One that ensures that the fighter(no matter how powergamey the player or how much role playing focused the player) does something different and interesting in each round of combat. While also making sure that the wizard doesn't have more options available to him than the fighter and that the options available to both are of equal value to the combat. Also make sure that all of the classes can contribute equally to a combat.

However, you must make sure that a group of characters still runs low on resources after a while to make sure you don't break realism too much and keep an element of resource management. However, you want each class to play the resource game as much as the others. So, you can't set the limit of a group to continue based on Cleric or Wizard spells.

But, you also want to make sure that the group is encouraged to fight multiple encounters per day and aren't able to blow all their resources in one combat.

Say what you will about the 4e system, but it accomplishes all of these goals. And at the end of the day, I'm sitting down to play a game with some friends. So, if the game portion of D&D works better then it is better for us.

I think that's where the main difference in people comes from. If I was sitting down to simulate some sort of reality then I would be perfectly willing to accept the fact that I, as the fighter, don't know how to cast spells...and magic is powerful so I should expect to be weak and have to do the same things over and over again. That's just the way life works. You don't always get to be the most powerful.

However, when I sit down to play a game with my friends, I expect the game to be fair to everyone. Even if it isn't "realistic" for fairness to exist. I think this is pretty much exactly what was said in the Q&A with the designers listed in the OP. When I sit down it's to evoke a story where a small group of adventurers risks their lives against all odds and defeats the bad guys after having a bunch of cool and interesting battles with a lot of tension.

My goal isn't to simulate anything at all. It is to play a fun game. A game which has fun rules.

Likewise, I hate when a narrative device hurts believability in a fiction.

I'm not sure that a narrative discussion of the events of a 4e would hurt believability at all. Your concern is with the fact that the players know the game rules.

I mean, as I pointed out in another thread, if I wrote a story that said:
"The fighter ducked under the attacking orc's axe, sweat dripping from his brow. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it up. He slashed with his sword, slicing at the orcs chest. The orc was forced to jump backwards to avoid the blow and it only scratched shallowly into him. The fighter took advantage of opening given to him and pushed forward, keenly aware that he was starting to be worn down with all the exertion. It was only a matter of time until he made a mistake and the orc's axe hit him and ended his life.

The warlord, seeing that his ally was in trouble and needed him to come to his aid wound up with his greatsword to make one last ditch effort to dispatch the orc that he was fighting so he would be free to help the fighter. He put every last ounce of willpower he had into the attack. Time was of the essence and his friend might die if this didn't work. He connected and felt his sword cleanly decapitate his adversary. He yelled out to the fighter, 'I'll be right there. You have to hold out until I get there. Remember, if we lose all of those villagers will be killed. We can't let that happen!'

The fighter, seeing the conviction in the warlord's eyes, steeled himself against the pain in his aching muscles and thought about the sweet little orphans he had met in town. He couldn't let them down. He just needed to hold out another couple of seconds. The warlord would be here to help him in no time and they seemed to be winning. He could rest after the last of the orcs lay on the ground dead. He felt a rush of energy go through his body and he realized that he could continue after all. He had to. He would not allow that orc to hit him."

All of this is completely possible(and encouraged) by the 4e rules. It doesn't create any narrative problems at all. It only creates problems when you start thinking of the game rules as narrative rules as well.

Sure, if you describe the warlord as yelling what he did and suddenly the gash in the fighter's chest healing...then people start wondering "What? How did he do that?!?!"

If the fighter actually yells out "Thanks for the healing, I could use another one next round." and the warlord says "Sorry, that was my daily, I can't do it again." THEN you have a problem.

However, only the PLAYERS discuss things like that. Which is no problem, since they ARE a bunch of players playing a game with rules. It's helpful to describe things in terms of rules so everyone is on the same page.

 

[lutecius]

A little biased here, I think. Warlocks don't teleport because of their class role. They teleport because they just sent another soul to their dark masters and got a little burst of power in exchange. Clerics don't give temporary HP when they smite because of their class role. They do it because the divine energy they channel harms their enemies and shields/invigorates their allies. These explanations are not such a reach.

I still don't see the connection. I could grok a vampiric warlock who gets extra HP or an overall power boost from his kill (i've seen this in movies). Why the dark masters would specifically allow him to move 3 squares every time he does someone in is beyond me (and wow, them fairies got really nasty)

Same for the cleric. Unless he worships some twisted war god, i don't see how "I smite yon foul creature" specifically induces "wish y'all a speedy recovery"

Even if it worked, that is what I call afterthought explanation.
Rather than "how could we translate this cool concept into balanced game rules?" it feels like it was the other way around. That approach is bound to break my suspension of disbelief at some point.

D&D has asked us to accept a lot over the years, and I can't see what makes these notions any more harmful to suspension of disbelief than the usual long list of glaring inconsistencies.

They just make the list longer. I felt that each previous edition at least tried to make it shorter.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like the two terms "Fortune in the Middle" and "Fortune at the End" that I have read somewhere else on this board.

For D&D 3 to D&D 4, we're going from
- Player decides what his characters wants to do given the circumstances as described, and then rolls the dice to see if it succeeds. The decision the player makes is usually also a decision made by the player.
- Player decides that the circumstances allow the character (party/enemy) to do something, and then rolls the dice to see if he succeeds. In the game world, the character sure didn't decide the circumstances, he just decided to try it, and it was the players influence to change the circumstances so that the character could try what he tried.

Until you understand (probably easy) and accept (not so easy, since it's also a question of preferences) this shift, 4E will be hard to swallow. These two approaches / paradigms are different, and what makes sense under the first might not make sense under the second, or vice versa.

You can discuss whether this shift is good or bad, but one shouldn't try to use the "old" paradigm to understand or explain game effects that are created under the second paradigm. (But one surely can discuss them using the second paradigm...)

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

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?

No I'm not jumping the gun, I don't need to see every single possible iteration of a thing to know how it works. That would be like saying until I fire every single small arm in existence I'm not able to judge the merits of small arms and is a fallacy. The sample I have is enough to judge that the design goals were based on a fundamentally different approach and make my own approach to setting creation much more difficult.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

No I'm not jumping the gun, I don't need to see every single possible iteration of a thing to know how it works. That would be like saying until I fire every single small arm in existence I'm not able to judge the merits of small arms and is a fallacy. The sample I have is enough to judge that the design goals were based on a fundamentally different approach and make my own approach to setting creation much more difficult.

Get used to it...the more information WotC reveals about 4E, the more you'll hear "but you haven't seen the complete thing yet, you can't judge the whole game only by a few previews" from a few here if you still are not convinced and have points of criticism. It's a mantra that'll hold until 4E is finally out...if you still have points of criticism then, you'll hear the same stuff that old-edition fans got to hear from the 3E crowd 7 years ago about their points of criticism.
History repeats itself, after all.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A lot of these alleged "problems" with 4e healing disappear if start looking at "hit points" as representative of character morale on top of all the other standard explanations.

The image of a character surging with excitement and gaining a temporary boost to competence after dispatching a foe with his favorite shtick is, in fact, a run-of-the-mill event in many action movies. This is no more straining of SOD than watching our heroes popping potions of healing in the middle of combat like a cartoonish vision of deranged crack addicts, less so in my mind.

As for the warlock, he gets a surge of Power. For an inherently magical creature a surge of Power could mean shaking off the effects of minor hurts, a temporary boost to attacks, or (for very magical creatures) becoming wreathed in flames, gaining size, becoming Hasted, growing an extra head or other limbs, regrowing lost limbs, or moving so swiftly as to appear to have teleported.