A reason why 4E is not as popular as it could have been

[Neonchameleon]

This is EXACTLY what some people want. That is the simulationism they want. A real world that the player is enveloped in.

Except 3e's brand of simulationism messes that up. A basketweaver earns as much per week as a gemcarver. Profession (Waitress) earns you as much for the same skill ranks as Profession (Lawyer). And the stonemason probably earns more than the lawyer.

Books and movies often skip the economics because it isn't part or a good movie or book. Oddly Harry Potter books and movies took time to describe the economy of wizard money versus muggle money. People ate it up so much that galleons, knuts, etc was made for sale.

And when it comes to worldbuilding 4e does not prevent you doing that. 3e with its hardcoded economics means you need to rewrite. It prevents you getting the world you want.

The other part here is that a role playing game is not a book. PCs poke at edges far more than characters in stories. They are far more likely IME to unearth the parts that are sloppily built and exploit them.

4th edition tells people to throw out the minutiae and bookkeeping, except for combat lets add more there, because that isnt fun. You agree with that, others do not. Those wanting that minutiae and simulation, the game wasn't made for them.

Which makes it a hell of a lot better than a game that gets minutae wrong. And then hardcodes them into the rules so they are a bitch to change without knock-on effects.

You would likely not play the next edition if it was designed around and claimed that your current method of play was wrong, correct?

It depends. If Dread claimed my current method of play was wrong it wouldn't stop me playing Dread for the games it's right for.

 

[pawsplay]

I can't find it; so I'm not positive. But I'm pretty sure it was after GURPS 4E. But even if not, I can tell you that the guy that wrote it wouldn't back down one bit for GURPS 4E. "Sim anything" is not equivalent to "Sim in a certain fashion." To the extent that GURPS 4E provides alternative mechanics and subsystems, it may very well cover a lot of ground. But it doesn't cover all possible ground.

Why would it cover all possible ground, and why would you want it to?

All any RPG can be is a set of alternative mechanics and subsystems. D&D 4e and Hero System are two alternative mechanics and subsystems. The implication you seem to be making is that GURPS is quite limited in what it will do, based on its basic structure. GURPS 4e is not very limited in that respect, despite having the same basic structure as 3e, which was fairly limited in many areas. Similarly, 3e covers a wide range of possible types of games, 4e provides mechanical support for only a few.

 

[Neonchameleon]

4e tends to aim for the smooth montage, the expository transition, the leitmotif. 3e offers a wider set of tools for more diverse genres of experience. In the case of some players, that diversity may be unwanted. But in the case of 4e, the lack of that diversity is irreplaceable to those who want it. I'm not saying 3e is better, holistically and objectively, than 4e, any more than I would say filet minon is better than a cheeseburger.

The problem is that when I look at 3e from a worldbuilding perspective I don't see a fillet mignon. I see a KFC Bucket. Now some people like KFC. But at my table, one player's a vegitarian, one doesn't eat battery chicken, and one's on a diet. Two would be happy with a KFC bucket.

4e provides me with nothing.

But proceeding from the goals of an RPG, as I understand them for myself and for others generally, I perceive 3e to be a better designed game, just as I perceive a well-prepared filet minon to be better than a cheeseburger made from standard chuck. Now, if you really want an cheeseburger, it doesn't matter how good the steak is.

But I don't see 3e's worldbuilding as a well-prepared filet mignon. Not even close. It leads to the question whether I want us to eat the KFC bucket or whether I want to dump it.

If we're all going to eat the KFC bucket, 3e's much better than 4e. But if I actually want a fillet mignon or just something that isn't very greasy, I've had to deal with this greasy bucket we're not going to eat just to get to the point where 4e starts. And it's left a stain of grease underneath it that needs cleaning up.

4e does not provide a gourmet experience. It's fine to like it, but it just doesn't.

No it doesn't. What it provides is a gourmet starter, complete with a few sharp specialist knives for the maincourse.

4e is facile. That is neither praise nor condemnation; that is what it is. 3e is baroque. It was be nice if all the unfun things were easy and all the fun things were deliciously engaging, but there is going to be tension between design goals, aside from different preferences between gamers.

Indeed. 3e is baroque. It's multiple things mixed together in a nice plastic package. Far from being gourmet-quality, it's a ready-meal. And there are times when ready-meals are exactly what I want.

4e is facile. It's only one part of the meal. But it's that part of the meal made from top quality ingredients and cooked almost to perfection. It's a gourmet starter even if not one to everyone's taste.

Coming back around, there is nothing in 3e or 4e that is likely to significantly prevent you from playing out detailed scenarios with depth of world and character. However, what 4e offers is barely more than no system at all in such matters.

Oh, indeed. The question here is whether no system is more useful than an actively bad and counter-productive system. And the answer to that depends on how much cooking you are prepared to do.

I can provide motivations for my merchants easily. Monster ecologies? Seriously? 4e monster manuals provide what is to me something more valuable - they give me indications as to how the monsters think and behave.

 

[LostSoul]

(This of course ties into my belief that simulation does not compete with other experential goals, only with time and space itself, i.e. simulation is an activity that requires a quantifiable amount of energy. So much the worse for Forgie theory).

I think that's the "platform" of Exploration that Ron Edwards talks about in the Big Model theory.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Why would it cover all possible ground, and why would you want it to?

All any RPG can be is a set of alternative mechanics and subsystems. D&D 4e and Hero System are two alternative mechanics and subsystems. The implication you seem to be making is that GURPS is quite limited in what it will do, based on its basic structure. GURPS 4e is not very limited in that respect, despite having the same basic structure as 3e, which was fairly limited in many areas. Similarly, 3e covers a wide range of possible types of games, 4e provides mechanical support for only a few.

No, I'm not saying that GURPS is quite limited. I know full well that you can do a lot with it.

Dang, at least I just had dinner. All these food analogies are making me hungry. In the food world, GURPS 4E is chicken. Not only can you do all kinds of neat chicken things with it (and boy are there a lot), you can also fake some other stuff! Everyone knows that rattlesnake and froglegs and alligator and a whole bunch of other things "taste just like chicken." So rather than get all wet and maybe get bit or eaten, I can just get some chicken, and have my alligator BBQ, right?

Most people don't know the difference. Most people don't even care. Unless they go with you and catch the alligator, and then watch you cook it, they'll never know if you serve them chicken. Heck, with some sleight of hand, you could probably slip in some chicken and still convince them it was gator, while you sold the gator elsewhere. And even if they caught that, put enough cayenne pepper in the BBQ sauce, and you can mix and match.

But if you ask people who have tried these alternatives, simply prepared, they will tell you that these things actually taste, "mostly like chicken"--assuming your chicken is free range and kind of gamey. So as soon as someone starts doing a real comparison, with the sauces removed, no misdirection, etc.--some people can tell a meaningful difference.

And likewise, you can make dishes that are traditionally not chicken, out of chicken, and get something very good. (I happen to like chicken pizza better than a lot of the things it replaces, for example.) You can put chicken in lasanga, use similar spices and sauces, and it will be very good. But it will be chicken lasanga, not beef sausage lasanga.

This is exactly what that quote is referring to. You are still too focused on the lasanga. Some guy comes along and says he wants lasanga, you might say, "Hey, I've got a great recipe for that using GURPS." And you do. He tries is, and tells you it just isn't working for him. Talk long enough, and you find out that the beef sausage was really what was important. The lasanga was just the way he was used to doing it before.

You can do GURPS horror or GURPS fantasy or GURPS supers or whatever. And as long as all you care about is the genre, it will work just fine. The moment you start wanting Hero fantasy, though, GURPS is, at best, a subpar substitute. Maybe very close to the same thing, but still subpar.

 

[pawsplay]

I think that's the "platform" of Exploration that Ron Edwards talks about in the Big Model theory.

Sure. And you can bust the creative agenda model wide open by positing a game where:

1. the reality of the game world is literally based on narrative tropes, that is, the characters live in and may even be aware they are in a story, controlled by the physics of dramatic tropes.
2. the out-of-game (metagame) rewards are based on successfully fulfilling the narrative structure.

Conveniently, I can name three examples off-hand: Torg, Toon, and Discworld. But you can reach this edgepoint in any game by defining your dramatic or gameplay outcomes as the reality you want to define, and start implementing it mechanically and narratively. Ron could never seem to grasp that if you successfully implemented a Narrative model game, it would be simulating a narrative mechanically in a way that would tend to produce narratives, irrespective of the players' agendas. And, if you don't want to "lose" a Narrative game, you buy into its token rewards. All the best games are "abashed." Why? Because they are the game of which they are the game of. That is why BECMI D&D stands out as such a great design, despite being mired in dinosaur age rules design and inconsistencies. Regardless, if you play that version of D&D, you get what it says on the tin.

Which is why, I think, 4e remains popular with the people it is popular with. If you like what it is, it is very much what it is. It is the work of some fantastic designers, who incidentally contributed to a version of D&D I like very much. But despite 4e's successful focus, I think play is just going to be inherently limited. As long as you continue to draw intrinisic satisfaction from dipping into 4e's well, you will continue playing and enjoying it. But its cornucopia is not great.

Ok, so I think I'm talking to myself a bit there. What am I trying to say that is worth saying? Here it is: I would never point to 4e and say, "Don't do this." 4e does some things really well. But I don't think it was a good idea to point to 4e and say, "This is the new D&D." Plenty of people like it, but enough rejected the opportunity to play the new D&D that it can be said, definitively, that the new D&D was not well-received. All previous editions of D&D have largely eclipsed their preceding versions. Someone is welcome to say, "By definition, 4e is the new D&D." But if you say, "4e is sufficiently D&D to provide a superior replacement experience for previous versions of D&D," the numbers say you are mistaken. 4e is not sufficiently D&D, not from a creative standpoint, nor a financial viewpoint. It did not capture its audience, it did not successfully compete with the D&D already being played.

 

[pemerton]

We are talking about thematic breadth rather than depth, though.

<snip>

Depth in the economics is, in my opinion, significantly shallower than in 3e

<snip>

little support for holdings and rulership, non-combat interactions,

<snip>

4e tends to aim for the smooth montage, the expository transition, the leitmotif. 3e offers a wider set of tools for more diverse genres of experience.

<snip>

4e is facile.

<snip>

Coming back around, there is nothing in 3e or 4e that is likely to significantly prevent you from playing out detailed scenarios with depth of world and character. However, what 4e offers is barely more than no system at all in such matters.

<snip>

Monsters don't have ecologies.

There's a lot going on here.

I agree, and take it as obvious, that 4e doensn't support a trading game. Enough said.

I don't agree that 4e doesn't support PC holdings. It has paragon paths and epic destinies that support the idea of noble rulership - eg Knight Commander - and it has a mechanicsm for resolving the non-combat challenges that might be associated with being a ruler - skill challenges.

It doesn't have 3E's Leadership feat, but that feat doesn't say a lot about running a holding. And 4e doesn't deal with the economics of running a holding - which goes back to the economic game. But if a player wants his/her PC to become a ruler and use that rulership to make a difference in the gameworld then I think the game can pretty easily handle that.

As for non-combat interactions, I don't think it's true at all that there's no support. Having played a lot of 4e with a lot of non-combat interactions, I think that there's strong support. I personally prefer it to the approach of a game like 3E or Rolemaster. I wouldn't expect everyone else to do so. But I don't see how you can say it's not there.

As for the diverse genre of experiences - how does 3E handle heroquesting? or PCs becoming demigods? This goes back to the Swiss-army knife point - I don't think that 3E is quite as versatile as is sometimes suggested.

It is a clear extension of the "it only needs stats if you're going to kill it" mentality that does, indeed, affect thematics.

Well, I think this is a bit of a misdescription. Non-combat encounters in 4e are heavily statted - it's just the way that the stats are assigned and handled (via the skill challenge mechanics) that's different.

The weirdest thing about 4e for me is the radical difference between its combat and non-combat engines (which can certainly make it hard to integrate the two). This goes back to some of the earlier comments that it's not only that WotC agree with Ron Edwards about the potential popularity of narrativist design, but that they thought the market for this design was mostly crunch-loving CCG players.

 

[pemerton]

I assert that the Hobbit and LotR offer a dire lack of detail as a game

<snip>

There wasn't mention of the money used in the LotR movies. I doubt there will be much in the Hobbit either. The movies don't require that to tell the story.

That kind of story is great for the book, but when applying it to an RPG, people can get what the books and movies miss. The rest of the world. Be that part of the world the economics, who does the basket weaving, whatever.

I think it is pretty trivial to run a brilliant and deep FRPG in which the issue of how much things cost, and how long it takes to weave a basket, simply never comes up.

Of published mechanical systems that would handle this, at least three that spring to mind are The Burning Wheel, d20 Conan and HeroWars/Quest.

The only limitations a TTRPG has is the imagination of the players and GM.

I don't think that's in dispute. What's in dispute is whether the only really imaginative things are basket weaving and child-killing paladins. There are other elements of the fantasy genre on which I prefer to focus my imagine while playing the game. It doesn't follow from this difference of imaginative focus that I'm not imagining.

As long as you use 4th edition, anyone viewing 4th edition as a tactical skirmish game, then your game will fit within the definition they have for 4th edition. You just have to come to terms with it and accept it.

You enjoyment isn't in question, just the system itself. So don't try to defend the system

The system speaks for itself. I'm simply trying to refute the suggestion that my game is a series of random encounters with no depth or imagination.

 

[LostSoul]

Sure. And you can bust the creative agenda model wide open by positing a game where:

1. the reality of the game world is literally based on narrative tropes, that is, the characters live in and may even be aware they are in a story, controlled by the physics of dramatic tropes.
2. the out-of-game (metagame) rewards are based on successfully fulfilling the narrative structure.

That seems to sum up the way I played most of my games of Star Wars d6; I'd call that simulationism/Right to Dream play.

 

[pawsplay]

I don't agree that 4e doesn't support PC holdings. It has paragon paths and epic destinies that support the idea of noble rulership - eg Knight Commander - and it has a mechanicsm for resolving the non-combat challenges that might be associated with being a ruler - skill challenges.

Every game of D&D I've ever played has given a pay scale for common mercenary types. Most of them have at least provided ballparks for the cost of a keep. I don't think it's necessary to say 4e has no support for such things; it is sufficient to say it has very little. Some of the D&D rules-sets have offered very sophisticated (albeit imperfect) subsystems for every bit of rulership, from dominion management to hirelings to mercenaries to ingratiating yourself with nearby rulers.

It doesn't have 3E's Leadership feat, but that feat doesn't say a lot about running a holding. And 4e doesn't deal with the economics of running a holding - which goes back to the economic game. But if a player wants his/her PC to become a ruler and use that rulership to make a difference in the gameworld then I think the game can pretty easily handle that.

Yeah, and so can Fudge. That's pretty much my comeback line. Any time someone says you can do X with rule system that does not strongly support X, I'm like, sure. I know it can; I started gaming in the early 80s, and we had to make do in a lot of situations where there weren't rules. I was twelve years old when I wrote my first set of rules for GURPS super-powers. Very few games will prevent you from doing XYZ. You could take Toon, implement a Death houserule instead of Falling Down, and use it to play a Halloween-inspired slash-horror game.

As for non-combat interactions, I don't think it's true at all that there's no support. Having played a lot of 4e with a lot of non-combat interactions, I think that there's strong support. I personally prefer it to the approach of a game like 3E or Rolemaster. I wouldn't expect everyone else to do so. But I don't see how you can say it's not there.

3e provides the bare bones to resolve just about anything. 4e gives you a structure and sort of asks you to fill in the resolution system. My understand is that this may have gotten better but there's your starting place. Compare to 3e which gives you, say, interpersonal situations: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. If you want to go rules-heavy, you could implement the rules from Dynasties & Demagogues (a third party product), which demonstrates how the resolution can be encapsulated within the skills and systems already provided.

4e doesn't really provide lots of subsystems. You have a few flavors of skill challenges, and that's basically it. Not only that, you can't look at your character sheet and guess how effective your character is at persuasion; that depends on how the GM structures the encounter. You could have high modifiers and still stumble through a scene if the GM sets high DCs for individual components of the skill challenge. Or just includes lots of components.

As for the diverse genre of experiences - how does 3E handle heroquesting? or PCs becoming demigods? This goes back to the Swiss-army knife point - I don't think that 3E is quite as versatile as is sometimes suggested.

3e handles becoming a demigod just fine. Just play past 18th level, basically. If you want to, use some kind of epic rules system on top of level 20, or invent some prestige classes that literally grant divinity. You can bolt on Bloodlines rules, or use the Deities & Demigods rules to allow them to take divine ranks. You have a LOT of options.

Well, I think this is a bit of a misdescription. Non-combat encounters in 4e are heavily statted - it's just the way that the stats are assigned and handled (via the skill challenge mechanics) that's different.

Ultimately the structure is identical to a Grimtooth's trap: some arbitrary number of components, plenty of room for player creativity in how to defeat each component, decidedly limited paramters. If the PCs to go over-under or otherwise approach in an unconventional way, I guess you get to improvise a skill challenge. Which is not, reputedly, easy. Is it any better, in fact, than a first edition DM saying, "Uh, okay, roll a d20 under your Dex to cross the platform?"

At some points I am undoubtedly lowballing 4e's capabilities, because I don't know it well. I can speak to my impressions from warily eyeballing it, trying to decide if, in fact, I had to try it at some point. Despite some strong incentives, I went with a no.