D&D 4E 4E's New Direction: Giving the game back to the DM.

[Tony Vargas]

Sometimes what is fun for you isn't for your players and vice versa.

Sure, it's a cooperative game, not just for the players, but for the players and the DM. That's why having the rules come down on one 'side' or another doesn't help, you still have to find a way to all 'play nice' together.

My point is that often DMs are really bad at determining what is or isn't balanced. They often think they know best and then go changing things because they feel it works best and end up breaking it in the process, while convinced they are doing what is best.

It wasn't ever done in this way in previous editions. In 2e and 1e, there were no guidelines on how rare anything was supposed to be.

There absolutely were. Treasure was random-rolled. An item that you got by rolling a '15' on percentile dice on a sub-chart you had a 1 in 12 chance of checking was a lot rarer than an item you got by rolling a 12-33 on d% on a sub-chart you had a 1 in 6 chance of checking. DMs were free to pick items, but it was very obvious which items were rare and which commonplace.

The general rule in AD&D (1e & 2e) was that items couldn't be made or bought. As with Essentials, though, there two different classes of items. There were potions & scrolls that could sometimes be bought and were fairly straightforward to make. Then there were charged and permanent items which were much more involved and required hard-to-acquire components that were often a quest in themselves to find. That's exactly the sort of thing Essentials is doing. The line between make/buy and 'special reagents' is drawn a little differently, but it's the same aproach.

Why can't they be balanced to the extent that the existing classes are?

Because of the way D&D handles resource management by 'day' as well as by encounter. A class with daily resources will perform more strongly in some encounters than others, when he chooses to use one or more dailies. A class without daily resources will perform the same in all encounters.

Balancing two such classes requires that the non-daily class be better than the daily class when the daily class doesn't use dailies, and that the daily class out-perform the non-daily when it expends it's dailies. Depending on how much each out-performs the other in either case, that requires balancing the /number/ of encounters, so that the daily and non-daily classes will each have a chance to shine.

The decision whether to use a daily also depends on the circumstances of the current encounter and expectations about the number, type, and circumstances of any additional encounters.

To, classes with different daily resources balance only at an intersection of relative daily/non-daily effectiveness, number of encounters per day, nature of encounters in a given day, and predictability of forthcoming encounters in a day. Deviate from the magic combination, and you have class imbalance.

The saving grace in this case is that 4e substantially reduced the power of dailies, and gave everyone some unlimitted-use abilities, so imbalances, while as likely as they were in prior eds, may very well be of lesser magnitude.

In fact, the more player freedom and choice you allow the more unbalanced the game gets...even if every item in the game is balanced.

3.x is a perfect example of that, yes.

Yes, the new rarity system will need new rules for starting at higher levels. I assume that instead of picking 3 items that you might be able to pick 2 Common items and roll for 2 Uncommon items.

It /could/ use the existing system - you pick 3 and buy the rest (all of which would have to be common). At Epic, you're supposed to have 3 rares, anyway. It might be slightly dangerous to let characters pick rares, though. Possibly the DM would have to assign those 3 items.

Yep, likely. That's going to be the hardest part of the conversion. I'm not looking forward to telling my players that they need to give up some of their items. But maybe it isn't all THAT imbalancing to let them keep they items they have now.

It will only be imbalancing if the player has already tried to abuse the make/buy rules by acquiring a lot of cheap-but-useful item dailies. And, if you let that happen, you'll probably let bad things happen under the new system, too.

I'm in complete agreement. There appears to be a lot of backpedaling here in order to appeal to people coming from 1e and 2e.

I wonder how many lapsed gamers realize how much the hobby has 'advanced' while they were off having lives?

 

[Greg K]

As for 4e, I think the game may give some of the game back to the DM. I like the option of having the choice to include the new fighter builds. I also like the removal of the daily item restriction by tier and the new magic item rarity (especially, the abiity to alter rarity by campaign).

However, I don't like the Warpriest with its Resurrecton ability hardcoded into the build despite liking domains being more prominent (imo, resurrection should be a domain ability and not a class ability) . I also don't like the change to magic missile and the DM not having the option to choose in the character builder which option is to be used. In both cases, I think they are impeding on DM control.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I also don't like the change to magic missile and the DM not having the option to choose in the character builder which option is to be used. In both cases, I think they are impeding on DM control.

I consider this to be a key issue - although in theory the character builder can be configured with a set of 'allowable campaign options', in practice you can only choose yay or nay on specific things from WotC sources. If you want to integrate your own new stuff you are SOL. And if something gets changed like MM, the DM isn't getting the option to choose what he wants to do with it - it is like it or lump it.

In that respect, whether or not text in books supports DM control, the software is still some way short of really supporting DM control, apart from within strict, shall we say railroads?

 

[Tony Vargas]

One thing WotC had clearly realized by the time it was publishing 3.5 (if not 3e), was that, if you want to sell books, you should market to a larger audience, and offer them books that they want.

There are more players than DMs. This was extra-true in the 3.x days, when DMing was exceptionally difficult and time-consuming, even by D&D standards. So, you should target books to sell to players, not to DMs.

Players want books that have rules in them that make thier characters awesome. They have wildly varying definitions of 'character' and 'awesome,' but that's prettymuch it. A player might be a book if he finds it interesting - he will almost certainly buy a book if it has even /one little rule/ that makes his character 'better' in his estimation. (BTW, this isn't all about powergaming - a concept-driven player might buy a book because he loves the fluff text of a PrC or look of a new race or something, too). So, you should write books that have cool stuff in them for character building. Not world-building. Not challenging characters. Building characters.


This marketing model did not change with 4e.


I don't know if they /intend/ to change it with Essentials, but, if they do, it might not be the best thing for their sales figures. Changing magic items back to the old-school, OD&D/AD&D DM's purview is risky, because players like running out and buying a new AV or whatever with a broken or flavorful item, and putting it on their wishlist, making, or buying it, and having fun with it until it's nerfed or something else shinier comes along.


Frankly, I don't think that either aproach - marketing lots of 'secret DM stuff' (setting material, DMGs, modules etc) or marketing lots of 'player goodies' (AVs, PHs, ________ Power books, player setting books, race books, character building guides, etc) - is morally superior or automatically better for the game, and a game needs to do at least some of both (you need DMs AND players, or it's just solitaire with wierd cards). But WotC does have to make a choice when it comes to who they want their target market to be.

I think the emphasis in 4e was to market to players, but also to make DMing much easier, so those players might actually find a game in which to play their awesome characters. Good plan. It seemed to work for a while.

I don't think Essential's 'new direction' is to market more to DMs or empower DMs more. I think it's to market to kids who bought the Red Box in the 80s, and who are now in thier peak-earning, midlife-crisis years.

 

[P1NBACK]

This marketing model did not change with 4e.


I don't know if they /intend/ to change it with Essentials, but, if they do, it might not be the best thing for their sales figures. Changing magic items back to the old-school, OD&D/AD&D DM's purview is risky, because players like running out and buying a new AV or whatever with a broken or flavorful item, and putting it on their wishlist, making, or buying it, and having fun with it until it's nerfed or something else shinier comes along.


Frankly, I don't think that either aproach - marketing lots of 'secret DM stuff' (setting material, DMGs, modules etc) or marketing lots of 'player goodies' (AVs, PHs, ________ Power books, player setting books, race books, character building guides, etc) - is morally superior or automatically better for the game, and a game needs to do at least some of both (you need DMs AND players, or it's just solitaire with wierd cards). But WotC does have to make a choice when it comes to who they want their target market to be.

I think the emphasis in 4e was to market to players, but also to make DMing much easier, so those players might actually find a game in which to play their awesome characters. Good plan. It seemed to work for a while.

I don't think Essential's 'new direction' is to market more to DMs or empower DMs more. I think it's to market to kids who bought the Red Box in the 80s, and who are now in thier peak-earning, midlife-crisis years.

Tony, I don't think the change in tone has anything to do with marketing. However, I do think they are changing their marketing tactics. There may be more players than DMs, but DMs, in my experience at least, are the more dedicated customers. They are the ones buying the most books, buying minis, buying maps and adventures. Players MAY pick up that ONE book that MIGHT have something to do with their character. PHB3? Eh. Has nothing to do with my Warforged Warlord. The DM on the other hand is always looking at everything with intent to buy.

I think WotC has learned this, and it's why they're going back to putting player material back in with some DM material (evidence: Dark Sun Campaign Setting) for additional support. The Essentials line has some products separated for DMs and for players, but going forward I plan to see DM and player data in books.

My opinion is that the new change in direction has little to do with marketing and more to do with design philosophy. It's evident that the new team at WotC plan to take D&D in a direction that harkens back to the days of yore. And, I'm sure some of them think that the role of the DM should have more emphasis in their products.

It's like them deciding to put more focus on the "world" fluff aspect in their new products. Has nothing to do with marketing and everything to do with design direction.

I stand by my observation that the DM will see more text that explicitly explains and backs up their role in the game. And, sometimes, that's deciding what options the players have in their campaign.

 

[Tony Vargas]

My opinion is that the new change in direction has little to do with marketing and more to do with design philosophy. It's evident that the new team at WotC plan to take D&D in a direction that harkens back to the days of yore..

And why are they doing that?

I think it's because they want to market to the former fans who were in on D&Ds peak popularity, and who just happen to be moving into a prime age demographic for such a push.

Why do you think they're harkening back to the direction of the game in the 80s?

 

[Zaran]

I consider this to be a key issue - although in theory the character builder can be configured with a set of 'allowable campaign options', in practice you can only choose yay or nay on specific things from WotC sources. If you want to integrate your own new stuff you are SOL. And if something gets changed like MM, the DM isn't getting the option to choose what he wants to do with it - it is like it or lump it.

In that respect, whether or not text in books supports DM control, the software is still some way short of really supporting DM control, apart from within strict, shall we say railroads?

Yeah, my GM basically stopped running his game because I wanted to keep using my Character Builder with changes that he does not agree to.

 

[SunRaven01]

Apocryphal, but I've heard of games in my town where everyone is expected to have a DDI subscription during play and are required to use Character Builder and its character sheets.

My players are required to use the Character builder and provide me with a .dnd4e file of their characters. However, I pay for the DDI subscription, and we share the account. /shrug They don't seem to find it much of a hardship, and I make it clear that the version of the character that I have is what I consider the canon version.

 

[Solvarn]

Support for the Character Builder

If as a DM you are afraid of the Character Builder you are really missing an opportunity. It has never been easier to reference rules changes and updates, and to allow or disallow material into your campaign.

You can add houserules without having to be a database programmer (doesn't work seamlessly with math, etc. but is nice and will show up on the sheet).

In addition, you can easily make your own campaign rules and allow or disallow books as you see fit. All of the books that come out are collected in one place, and are regularly updated with errata that is published to balance the game.

I'm playing in a game that goes strictly by LFR rules. No problem, I load the LFR rules. The next campaign we are starting soon, the DM doesn't want us to use PHB III. So we just click it off.

The Adventure tools are also really awesome.

The best part is you can get 5 downloads for $10.00. That isn't too bad for all of the time it saves.

The digital tools, although not as robust as they were promised at the onset of 4E, are really well done and if utilized save a DM a ton of time.

 

[P1NBACK]

And why are they doing that?

I think it's because they want to market to the former fans who were in on D&Ds peak popularity, and who just happen to be moving into a prime age demographic for such a push.

Why do you think they're harkening back to the direction of the game in the 80s?

I think they're doing that because there's been a shift in who is running the D&D design team. There are clearly some misgivings with the design direction taken with the original 4E team and at this point WotC is trying to bring back some of those classic elements that 4E was missing.

Would WotC want to market those things toward the demographic that preferred and criticized 4E for missing those elements? Sure. That's what the whole Red Box style is about. But, is the design change simply a marketing ploy? I don't think so. I think it's a legitimate change in design philosophy and WotC is using marketing to support that design philosophy.