D&D 4E 4e With No Casters?

[GreatLemur]

The one stumbling block is that the game expects fighters to wear heavy armor, but you could get around that by building a simple house rule (a fighter in light armor gets a flat bonus to AC to make up the gap).

Hell, you know that level-based defense bonuses and armor-as-DR will be some of the first house rules we try, anyway.

 

[Lizard]

When a group contains only a single specialist in a particular area, any hazard in that area that is challenging to the specialist is utterly impossible for the other characters, leaving their players with nothing to do but sit and grow bored. Any hazard that would be challenging but possible for the other characters is trivially solved by the specialist, again leaving the non-specialist players with nothing to do.

See, I play with people who are capable of not being bored while someone else has the spotlight. I don't know how well I'd get along with the presumed narcissists with ADD who seem to be what WOTC thinks is the core player base for D&D. The whole "Anyone who isn't ON STAGE RIGHT NOW is going to be bored/frustrated/leaving to play WoW" just doesn't jibe with my experience of "rotating spotlight" style play as the default model.

But that's another thread.

 

[hong]

See, I play with people who are capable of not being bored while someone else has the spotlight.

Spotlight? Who said anything about spotlight? I just want to do stuff.

 

[Lizard]

Spotlight? Who said anything about spotlight? I just want to do stuff.

And if you're not doing stuff, do you get up and leave, never to return?

This goes beyond combat/action sequences. When Player A is having a deep and meaningful discussions with his romantic partner, it's not proper for "Everyone to participate". When Shifty The Rogue has to go sneak off to meet with the head of the thieves guild to discuss Guild Business, he doesn't need Thud the Barbarian and Fingerwiggles the Wizard tagging along because otherwise they'd be "bored". PCs have lives outside the party, and a game which denies/denigrates them out of an obsession with "Everyone gets to do something, all the time, no matter what" is a poor game, IMO. (And, yes, these sorts of things DO come up in actual play, at least in my group, so I'm not pulling made-up examples out of thin air. Every problem I have with the 4e "model" is based on how it fits (or doesn't) with real-world playstyles.)

I just can't get into the me me me! Look at me! Let me do something! attitude as applied to every single minute of game play. As long as everyone gets equal time and a chance to be cool or interesting, I don't see the problem.

 

[Mallus]

The thing for me is -- what am I simulating?

Now that's an excellent question. For me, the answer is usually 'a violent storybook chock-full of thinly disguised intellectual property stolen from someone else'.

Call it the Voltron Problem -- Voltron can't form the Blazing Sword until he's used a half-dozen other attacks which, we know, never work.

Japanese engineers and television writers having been trying to solve that one for decades to no avail.

Per-encounter powers make dramatic sense, but blow worldbuilding to hell, because they mean nearly unlimited use of powers (depending on how an 'encounter' is designed).

That depends entirely on the scope and effect of the powers, doesn't it? I can imagine per-encounter, or even at-will abilities that wouldn't be world/verisimilitude-breakers. It's all in how their defined.

Conversely, D&D has a rich tradition of per-day magical abilities that might as well be named "Destroy Economy" or would usher in an end-of-the-world scenario like the Shadow Apocalypse, if a group decided to run the game in unfettered simulation mode.

Arguing that "Well, no NPCs choose to do that!" smashes any kind of verisimiltude in the face (as well as allowing PCs to ignore adventuring and set themselves up as millionaires by using their low level powers to greatly profitable effect. Avoiding this requires the players ignore the full extent of what they can do and its impact on the world, and that's hard to force down their throats.)

See above. The game's always been run like that. It's always been tacit, informal agreements between DM's and players that keep D&D campaign from being crushed under the weight of it's own wahoo.

 

[hong]

And if you're not doing stuff, do you get up and leave, never to return?

Do you want to take the risk that I get up and leave, never to return? I have a lot of disposable income.

This goes beyond combat/action sequences. When Player A is having a deep and meaningful discussions with his romantic partner, it's not proper for "Everyone to participate".

This is easily remedied by limiting deep, meaningful conversations to ten seconds maximum. Maybe 20, because I don't want to rush things.

When Shifty The Rogue has to go sneak off to meet with the head of the thieves guild to discuss Guild Business, he doesn't need Thud the Barbarian and Fingerwiggles the Wizard tagging along because otherwise they'd be "bored". PCs have lives outside the party, and a game which denies/denigrates them out of an obsession with "Everyone gets to do something, all the time, no matter what" is a poor game, IMO.

It's a great game, IMO. You may have a life outside the party, but I only care if you're the life of the party.

I just can't get into the me me me! Look at me! Let me do something! attitude as applied to every single minute of game play. As long as everyone gets equal time and a chance to be cool or interesting, I don't see the problem.

By this argument, you don't actually need a group. You just need a bunch of people who will show up at your house at different times, each doing their own thing. Which is, you know, not D&D.

 

[hong]

See above. The game's always been run like that. It's always been tacit, informal agreements between DM's and players that keep D&D campaign from being crushed under the weight of the own wahoo.

Or you could go the way of Robin Laws' Rune, which makes the agreement explicit and formal.

 

[Mallus]

Or you could go the way of Robin Laws' Rune, which makes the agreement explicit and formal.

Please, sir, can I have some more, err, info?

 

[Lizard]

Do you want to take the risk that I get up and leave, never to return? I have a lot of disposable income.

I didn't know you were paying me to DM. In that case, spotlight time goes to the highest bidder. Ante up!

It's a great game, IMO. You may have a life outside the party, but I only care if you're the life of the party.

Just can't wrap my head around it. So your party is, basically, a multi-headed entity that wanders the land without any individual connection to other beings? OK. Hey, if you're having fun, go for it...

By this argument, you don't actually need a group. You just need a bunch of people who will show up at your house at different times, each doing their own thing. Which is, you know, not D&D.

You assume there's never any 'together time' or that someone's "solo" encounter doesn't suddenly have them calling a friend. In most games I'm in or run, there's an average of about 30% 'individual roleplaying time' and 70% 'group time', with that latter split roughly 50/50 between combat and social interaction. (This can be over sessions -- for example, one 6-7 hour game of all socializing, followed by one 6-7 hour game of all monster whackity, equals a 50/50 split of overall time.)

 

[Doug McCrae]

I just can't get into the me me me! Look at me! Let me do something! attitude as applied to every single minute of game play.

You've got it backwards. Going off on your own, deliberately excluding the other players from participating, is selfish. Being part of a group activity however is the total antithesis of 'me me me'. More like 'team team team'.

Sure, sometimes you want the lone wolf bit, for the sake of variety or plausibility, but I like to keep it to a minimum, I'm much more about the team play. The people I play with are pretty good about that. There's a definite awareness that excluding one or more players from the action is a Bad Thing, something to be avoided, out of a courtesy for the needs of others.