4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[Sunseeker]

See, this is part of the issue. Sure, if your table is happy with the results, great. Now, what about my table which is not happy with this result? What about my table where the rogue player is flipping through his cell phone because he's bored out of his mind and the cleric player is feeling guilty because he knows that he's the Angel Summoner to the BMX Bandit?

Should I receive no help from the mechanics?

I think the first of the final two points Ahn made is what really matters, to use some terms...A "watchmaker" DM can be useful and good in a lot of games where balance is relativly fair and the game calls for diversified challenges. However, sometimes a DM needs to become more involved in order to make sure a player or multiple players aren't feeling left out. Sometimes its a system issue, the game calls for lots of undead and the rogue becomes useless. Sometimes its a table issue, one of two very large personalities at the table drown out everyone else. The first may be remedied by adding a powerful living necromancer in charge of the undead, so the rogue may have little to do on the minions, but on their leader, oh boy! The other might require more directed action, giving things for the rogue to do that only the rogue can do, perhaps becoming involved with a bandit guild.

In either case, the key is for the DM to pay attention to what's going on in the game and if necessary, act. Everyone is there to have fun, and the DM is responsible for ensuring that, to a reasonable extent at least.

 

[Hussar]

Meh, I think the baseline should be, "Hey, guys, let's not force any player to ride the pines, not because of any decision the player makes, but because the game designers have decided that the player should ride the pines."

If the DM wants to sideline the player, that's groovy for that table. When the game writer wants to sideline the player regardless of what that table wants? Not so cool.

IOW, why default to sidelining players?

 

[Ahnehnois]

But, you rewrote the rules yourself. You agree that the sneak attack rules needed some work.

I did not, however, rewrites sneak attack in order to make it essentially a spell in order to balance with spells. I incorporated a variety of rules from Unearthed Arcana, Pathfinder, Trailblazer, and my own imagination that fix deeper systemic issues with the game. Then I redesigned sneak attack to work within that context. I don't think the problems with sneak attack are readily fixable in a game that uses hit point mechanics.

So, yes, I agree it needs a lot of work, but I suspect we have rather different ideas on what that work should be.

Why leave things up to individual DM's? "Just let them work it out" means that there are a lot of pretty crappy experiences out there.

Do you expect all the issues I have with my games to be fixed by the rules? Or just yours? Some of my big issues are a lack of believability and mechanical robustness in the health system, unnecessarily restrictive character creation rules, and metagame mechanics masquerading as in-game mechanics. Those are big problems. They all are problems in 3e that are commonly experience, and 4e unequivocally makes them all much worse. They are fixable. (Fixing them probably makes many of the 4e fans happy, but even if it didn't, it would sure make a lot of others happy).

That being said, while I think they could have done better, it would be rather naive of me to expect a mass-produced product to meet my individual needs perfectly. That's why house rules and DM judgments are so important.

In D&D, the DM is what makes a game good or bad. This is more important and fundamental to the game than classes, settings, dungeons, or dragons. No revision is ever going to change that. Some other rpgs don't have DM or posit roles in the sense that D&D does, but in D&D, individual DMs will always rules.

 

[Ahnehnois]

IOW, why default to sidelining players?

Even though I find this point overstated, there's still an answer to it: because that's what players want.

Some players want to smash things and are not interested in selecting a not of complicated abilities. Others enjoy a challenge and purposefully design characters with flaws and limitations regardless of the rules. Some, even in the absence of mechanics to justify it, have an aversion to magic and prefer to do things the old-fashioned way, and want it to be harder. And many D&D players are of a personality type where they simply don't want to be front and center and would prefer to be sidelined, as it were.

The reason to make the mechanics diverse (which in this case is probably antagonistic to your idea of game balance) is to reflect the diversity of the player base.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What, exactly, is my rogue going to do to a shambling mound or a mummy? How can he get around these limitations? Mentioned was holy water - a pretty minor work around and generally only effective against one of the several types of monsters. Use Magic Device. I'm not sure, but adding MORE magic to the game is perhaps not a great solution to the problem.

Just looking at the 2 examples presented, a rogue without UMD still has options.

Besides Holy Water (2d4 damage), fire works great against Mummies. Acid & cold will work against Shambling Mounds...and they can also be suffocated or drowned.

Both can be evaded- neither is particularly fast- and anything that forces a reflex save is going to have a good chance of affecting them, like a lowly Tanglefoot Bag. Similarly, a smart rogue can probably design a mechanical trap (Use Rope?) that may not stop them, but probably could impede or nullify them for an arbitrarily long period of time. Many DMs include bags of marbles as non-damaging pursuit evasion devices in their campaigns, and those should work almost as well as Grease would.

Given time to prepare- Gather Info?- a rogue may even be able to purchase or "borrow" tools better for the job than heir standard gear, like a flaming longsword for mummy-fighting or a "plant-bane" weapon.

With a good disguise- again, its details informed by info he has gathered- he may fool the mummy into believing that he is permitted into the area it guards. (He'd better be good, though.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here is my position.

...

I understand there are plenty who disagree and I'm not here to say you're wrong. I just point out that little trivial things add up. Even something as simple as "elementals are stupid, hail archons!" felt like a slap in the face. For me, 4e was best when it wasn't trying to be the D&D of my youth; when it tried to be it just felt wrong.

Yeah, nobody is wrong. I certainly don't think you're wrong either. I think from my perspective there have been MANY other FRPGs but none of them really quite felt like it had the depth of material and overall toolbox feel of D&D. We played DQ, RQ, GURPS, some others probably, I forget all of them, but when I play 4e it feels like playing D&D to me, even if the rules are in some respects significantly different. There are a lot of points of congruency, enough that for my not-very-pedantic needs for D&D-esque canon it works well. I can see how a totally non-D&D FRPG might in some respects have been more palatable, but I'd never have even looked at it, nor probably would most people. Consider, even fairly successful FRPGs like Savage Worlds or Fantasy Craft are virtually unknown compared with 4e even. OTOH for me being willing to break with aspects of the old canon that I found pedantic and unhelpful was refreshing. You might have been happy in that sense with the lore of 3.5 replicated in every detail (or whatever, I don't know). I wouldn't. Maybe I'd have still picked up 4e and liked it, I don't know.

I just enjoyed the differences, you hated them. I enjoyed the samenesses too. Yes, a vanilla level 5 wizard tossing fireball into a room probably won't kill most goblins, which is a bit different from say 1e. The same wizard with a couple feats or the right item? Eh, actually it would probably work. I mean it really IMHO is not that much different.

Anyway, its moot now, and I think we understand each other. I can only conclude that there was never any hope that we would both be pleased. Likewise there's no hope that DDN will please both of us either. Sucks to be WotC. Ah well...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And, as @Balesir indicated upthread, not all that hard to replicate - in tone if not in precise detail - in 4e.

Yeah, exactly. While it might not be in keeping with 4e's theory of encounter design as a routine monster it is trivial to make all sorts of monstrosities as one-offs in 4e. Honestly easier than with previous editions if anything. I also really like the disease track. Curses are so much fun.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree with all this. I don't think the story loading of PPs is irrelevant - I think it's hugely important. What I was trying to convey, though, is that the player doesn't have to "earn" it.

So in my game, the player of the drow sorcerer wanted to take Demonskin Adept as his PP, and so from about 8th level, whenever the PCs defeated demons, he would describe his PC cutting up bits of their skins and gradually sewing together his demonskin cloak. And I introduce an element into the game - sigils of chaos that appeared, tatooed, on the insides of his eyelids after a dream about the Queen of Chaos - in anticipation of his 16th level feature, which involves blinding both himself and his enemy on a crit.

But I think both player and GM incorporating these sorts of story aspects is very different from the "questing" model in AD&D or BECMI, where finding your warhorse, or achieving your immortality, actually has to be played out as a part of the game with a real chance of mechanical failure for the player, and hence ingame failure for the PC.

Yeah, and I understand the desire to have that mechanical hoop, OTOH my personal experience with hoops in AD&D or BECMI was they were more of a deterrent than anything. Somehow the Paladin never got around to sorting out his quest, the assassin just made do with being 11th level, etc. Usually the details the rules gave weren't that appropriate to the specifics of the character and setting anyway, so most of that stuff you still had to rewrite to use effectively (the paladin was perhaps the easiest to take as-is).

So, while I understand the desire to make the player "earn it" I think the 4e "come up with a good story for this" way works better for us in practice. Every PC is going to get that PP, and most of my players are at least modestly interested in RP and character building, so they do put out SOME effort there, even if they could potentially just slack. Admittedly there have been those that just chose "Daggermaster" or whatever, but you can't make the horse drink, and the same player that did that also wrote up 5 pages of background for each of her characters and RPed them rather well, she just ran out of steam at PP, and that was OK.

There are issues with the 4e approach. The "everyone hits level 11 at once" problem is the biggest issue I've had. You could get around it if the players don't all advance in lockstep, or you could delay some of them a bit as things work out in-game, etc but it is still not ideal. I don't have a real solution though. People have suggested using something more like 3e's Prestige Class solution. I dunno. I think the problem there is again no one specific 'path' to a given character element always works. Even with PrCs most characters are going to acquire them in the same level range I'd assume. Anyway, I dunno. I think some nuts are just hard to crack in RPGs. I have some ideas, but I am really avoiding the whole notion of writing yet another FRPG... lol.

 

[Hussar]

Just looking at the 2 examples presented, a rogue without UMD still has options.

Besides Holy Water (2d4 damage), fire works great against Mummies. Acid & cold will work against Shambling Mounds...and they can also be suffocated or drowned.

Both can be evaded- neither is particularly fast- and anything that forces a reflex save is going to have a good chance of affecting them, like a lowly Tanglefoot Bag. Similarly, a smart rogue can probably design a mechanical trap (Use Rope?) that may not stop them, but probably could impede or nullify them for an arbitrarily long period of time. Many DMs include bags of marbles as non-damaging pursuit evasion devices in their campaigns, and those should work almost as well as Grease would.

Given time to prepare- Gather Info?- a rogue may even be able to purchase or "borrow" tools better for the job than heir standard gear, like a flaming longsword for mummy-fighting or a "plant-bane" weapon.

With a good disguise- again, its details informed by info he has gathered- he may fool the mummy into believing that he is permitted into the area it guards. (He'd better be good, though.)

Mummies have vulnerability to fire. That means 50% more damage. Alchemists fire does a d6+50% damage. Wooo, I'm doing 4 points of damage per hit instead of 3. Of course, I could use UMD, in which case, why didn't I make a wizard in the first place. Probably be better off.

Tanglefoot bag? Sure, that's good. Granted, I'm not sure why that's particularly roguely, considering everyone can use it, same as a bag of marbles. But, hey, at least I'm doing something right? Note, the rogue also had to make his Will save at the beginning of the encounter or be paralyzed for d4 rounds. Basically a mummy is a big screw you to the non-caster classes. The cleric and the wizard probably both make this save, while the fighter and the rogue need saving. Again.

Now, if your DM is so enabling that he will allow you to talk to the mummy and convince it that you are supposed to be there, well, that's a DM I've never actually seen. But, hey, to each his own.

Me, I'd much rather take the idea that rogues should be screwed over by the mechanics behind the barn and shoot it, and then let the rogue player have a heck of a lot more fun. But, that's just me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

When you say "nor should they", I assume you mean something like "nor should they if they are going to yield a game that I prefer".

Because there is no objective RPG-design reason why rules should be as you characterise them ("a framework for operationalising what the character want to do based on their own internal logic"). For instance, in 4e a STR paladin can have an at-will attack called Valiant Smite. This grants a +1 to hit per adjacent enemy. And it is not simply an operationalisation of what the PC wants to do based on the PC's own internal logic: it is a metagame ability which ensures that the paladin who has it will be valiant, smiting his/her foes when they surround him/her. Inspiring Word, a Warlord power that allows an ally to spend a healing surge and thereby recover hit points, is another metagame power in 4e. And it does not simply operationalise what the warlord PC wants to do based on their own internal logic. It also allows the player of the recipient of the power to narrate his/her PC's inspired recovery from shock and pain, and resurgence into the fray!

Plenty of other RPGs also have mechancis that do more than simply operationalise what the characters want to do based on their own internal logic. For instance, in The Riddle of Steel or HeroWars/Quest, a character's attacks will be mechanically more potent if the target of the attack is someone whom s/he is statted up as hating, or if the attack is made in the course of defending someone whom s/he is statted up as loving. 4e doesn't have these sorts of emtional mechanics, but it has stuff in the neighbourhood - radiant attacks, for instance, make divine PCs more capable when confronting the undead, those violators of the gods' ordained order.

Dark Sun doesn't seem that idiosyncratic to me: it's seems a pretty standard sword and sorcery setting. Bizarre desert cities with mad wizard tyrants and oppressed slaves are hardly out of the ordinary for pulp tropes.

Its peculiar use of the D&D demihumans is a bit more distinctive, but that distinctiveness only arises because so much D&D material has been quite conservative in its handling of them.

Dragonlance strikes me as even more stock-standard: gruff dwarves, graceful elves, valiant knights riding metallic dragons, the whole works!

But the Red Box isn't Tolkien-esque at all, except in the flavour of its demihumans.

D&D orcs aren't Tolkien-esque. Tolkien has no distinct goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, gnolls, regenerating trolls, thouls, etc. Tolkien's wizards don't cast fireball at all, and a fortiori don't wipe out rooms of goblins using magic - Gandalf (if a magic-user at all, rather than a cleric) uses a sword; and Elrond is both an elf and a master healer (though, in Red Box terms, presumably not a cleric).

And the Red Box has basically no material to support a Tolkien-esque play experience - I'm not saying it would be impossible to play a fantasy romance using the Red Box, but I reckon it would be pretty hard.

The way you phrase this tends to imply that you are pointing to some desires of WotC, and some features of 4e - whereas I think you are really only conveying a biographical fact about yourself.

After all, for me (and, by his own testimony, for @AbdulAlhazred ) 4e captures the look, feel and (desired) play of D&D better than previous rulesets. Here is the sort of RP experience that Moldvay Basic - my first encounter with D&D - promised:

I was busy rescuing the captured maiden when the dragon showed up. Fifty feet of scaled terror glared down at us with smoldering red eyes. Tendrils of smoke drifted out from between fangs larger than daggers. The dragon blocked the only exit from the cave. . .

I unwrapped the sword which the mysterious cleric had given me. The sword was golden-tinted steel. Its hilt was set with a rainbow collection of precious gems. I shouted my battle cry and charged.

My charge caught the dragon by surprise. Its titanic jaws snapped shut inches from my face. I swung the golden sword with both arms. The swordblade bit into the dragon's neck and continued through to the other side. With an earth-shaking crash, the dragon dropped dead at my feet. The magic sword had saved my life and ended the reign of the dragon-tyrant. The countryside was freed and I could return a hero.​

My play and GMing of D&D has been, to a significant an extent, an attempt to find a mechanical way to make this sort of action - which is quite different from dungeon crawling and looting, and much closer to the Tolkien-esque - the centre of my play.

I've used AD&D (especially Oriental Adventures). I've used Rolemaster. And now I use 4e. For me, the story elements haven't changed in any fundamental way - the single most prominent source of story material for my Rolemaster play was AD&D modules, for instance. But the mechanics have. They've done a better job of delivering my desired play experience.

Right, and I think a deep part of my underlying feeling of dissatisfaction with pre-4e D&D was always the LACK of operationalization of goals. I usually wanted to allow the enacting of the sort of thing that Moldvay Basic (and 1e promises largely the same sort of thing, maybe a bit less explicitly) claims to be about but isn't. The characters weren't terribly heroic, they were at best highly dependent on CLW spells and healing potions, and were usually well advised to run away from direct violent confrontations at anything like fair odds (how could you play a paladin in classic D&D, really, you'd last 3 days). There were a LOT of ways in which classic D&D just didn't quite get there. It was often tantalizingly close, and we played plenty of quite fun games, but there was always a range of play that never quite worked. It never quite existed in other FRPGs either, most of which were frankly just living too much in the shadow of D&D. There probably ARE a couple from the 1e era that would have worked, but I know I never found them.

4e does scratch that itch reasonably well. In fact the MAIN issue I have is people having been conditioned so well by earlier editions that they have trouble taking up the mantle of the hero instead of playing the mercenary thug that classic D&D rules actually encouraged. I'd like a game to allow for both sorts equally, really.