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

[shadzar]

First, yes you were correct one 1E/2E overlap.

You may wish to also attribute to the one you were initially discussing that bit about that they too were right about the 1e/2e overlap....

But you're completely wrong on the count of 4E skills. Each has the same use it has outside of skill challenges that it does in 3E.

I could list uses of each skill that we use on a regular basis outside of skill challenges if you wish. But I suspect you don't care.

Frankly I dont care about the uses, but wouldn't mind a DMG or PHB page reference that tells about using them outside of the skill challenges.

If you don't need skill challenges, then why do they even exist?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Frankly I dont care about the uses, but wouldn't mind a DMG or PHB page reference that tells about using them outside of the skill challenges.

If you don't need skill challenges, then why do they even exist?

Most of the skill chapter is about using skills by themselves.

If you have a skill saw, you don't need a table saw. So why would table saws even exist? You've got a kitchen, you don't need restaurants. So why should restaurants even exist? You've got an imagination. Why would RPG rules systems even exist?

Not that "need" was an accurate phrasing of the original point, but I think the above shows the error in that logic.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

And, apparently, I can't give CJ XP again, even though I'd like to for his fun analogies.

 

[shadzar]

Most of the skill chapter is about using skills by themselves.

If you have a skill saw, you don't need a table saw. So why would table saws even exist? You've got a kitchen, you don't need restaurants. So why should restaurants even exist? You've got an imagination. Why would RPG rules systems even exist?

Not that "need" was an accurate phrasing of the original point, but I think the above shows the error in that logic.

Which makes me think why waste space with a "skill challenge" system is the skills already have a system?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Which makes me think why waste space with a "skill challenge" system is the skills already have a system?

Have you ever, at any point, run or played in a 4th Ed game?

Have you ever, at any point, actually read through the 4th Ed rulebooks?

 

[Bluenose]

Well, I'm sorta gonna answer your question with a question.

What did 3e do better than 4e? If your answer is "nothing" then that can be your opinion.


However, I'll happily admit 4e's combat is smoother and has a lot of neat mechanics. I'm also one of many who think that 3e did some things better, in particular, a number of out of combat things.


But, in addition to the "system", I was also referring to the supplemental materials. Back to the OP of the thread, a good world in which to play as well as good adventures are things that may not make good money (brussel sprouts and mashed potatoes), but they are important context for the main focus (fillet mignon).


So, I'll say, few settings for 4e, few really good adventures, and few third party supporters would be the side dishes I'm missing for 4e (as well as the dishes missing within the system itself).

I've never particularly cared about published settings or even adventures. I started back in the 70s, when there weren't that many. And so many of them are annoying to me anyway. If they don't find a fresh approach, I just can't be bothered to pay attention. I frankly felt with 3e/D20 that a lot of the better 3rd party books seemed to be fighting against the system, which certainly didn't inspire me to love it more. I've noticed a lot of the larger publishers from OGL days moved away from the system; there's no more D20 L5R or 7 Seas, M&M has gone it's own way. So involvement of 3PPs is a plus, only to the extent that a few produced interesting material despite the things I thought were flaws in the system.

Frankly I dont care about the uses, but wouldn't mind a DMG or PHB page reference that tells about using them outside of the skill challenges.

If you don't need skill challenges, then why do they even exist?

Skill challenges get used when you're trying to do something that's more complicated than a single roll against one person's skill. Generally I would only use them if several players were doing different things with one end purpose in mind, and if there was some likelihood that failure would have consequences for the group. Without a specific situation in mind, it's hard to come up with concrete examples for a skill challenge.

If multiple people are all trying to got hold of information about a group and then come back and compare notes on what they've found out, that might be a skill challenge, if they're trying to do so without attracting attention. The more successes they have, the more information they get. Each failure increases the chance that they've attracted unpleasant attention, which might mean they get attacked or that the people they're investigating are waiting for them.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Which makes me think why waste space with a "skill challenge" system is the skills already have a system?

It is a tool for the DM to support non-combat encounters through a series of skill uses, much like combat is an encounter through a series of attacks.

Those who claim that 4E has no non-combat support always seem to ask why skill challenges are necessary. You want non-combat support but then deem it unnecessary?

The skill challenge concept wasn't fully fleshed out when 4E bebuted, but many of us have used the framework to create some really interesting encounters where characters never swing or sword or sling a spell. Could you do that before 4e? Of course you could. But I find the skill challenge tool to be useful in codifying what can go wrong in a complex challenge and sets up a better way (IMO) to reward players for overcoming a non-combat challenge.

Are all SC good? My god, no. Some of the published ones were terrible. But the tool is only as good as its master. And over time the skill challenges I create become more interesting to myself and my players. I think the framework would work for any game that has a skill system and is one part of 4E that is useful in an edition-neutral way.

 

[Umbran]

If you don't need skill challenges, then why do they even exist?

Oh, that's simple - to make it conceptually easier for the GM to build skill-based encounters or challenges, and reward PCs for completing them. That's all. Ultimately, they're really just a GM-aid, much like the guidelines for building combat encounters or a particular strength.

 

[pemerton]

You cannot at this point in time with the multitude of sourcebooks and Dragon/Dungeon for 4e in all fairness regulate comparisons to corebooks only. In those previous editions, there are rules and/or advice for everything from hiring laborers and henchmen to constructing strongholds, traveling to other dimensions (even other game systems), owning land, non-combat monsters, morale, etc. much of which (even this far into it's life cycle and with so much supplemental material published) 4e either lacks officially or leaves up in the air for the DM to create. YMMV of course.

<snp>

things such as time travel and dimensional travel to other worlds were at least mentioned and given rules/advice for in AD&D. Also the setting (Planescape) was based on the premise that the very multiverse could be shaped with belief. Not exactly hero-questing (and probably not the best implementation but still a good first try IMO) but still the earlier editons seem to, IMO, have a much wider, wilder and encompasing blanket than what is currently offered.

Imaro, I really think that this post captures the difference in perspectives very well.

I'm not really into the food metaphors, so I'll try and do it literally.

On one approach to dimensional travel or heroquesting, what is really important is a set of solid rules dealing which "model" or "give effect to" the ingame reality of time travel etc. So I get a well-defind plane travel spell, rules for severing the silver cord, that sort of thing.

I don't know if 3E has all of this (I know its DDG and MoP, but not the later stuff), but obviouly it could. (So could GURPS.)

On another approach to dimensional travel or heroquesting, what is really important is a mechanical framework which allows the GM to set up open-ended by thematically-guided conflicts, allows this to be done in real time, and that supports the GM in resolving them at the table. A mechanic which, in virtue of the way in which it handles pacing, and the points at which it permits complication to be injected, and the way theme is able to be reinforced or tested through these factors (etc, etc) puts the players in control of theme rather than vice versa. (As well as its action resolution mechanics, 4e also has a crucial feature of its character build rules that supports this, namely, epic destinies as a guaranteed aspect of play leading to a player-focused endgame - very different from, for example, the old Immortals rules.)

This is what 4e offers, and what it is better at than 3E (and Planescape, etc). (And obviously HeroWars/Quest could do this also, and in some ways probably better than 4e - but like I posted upthread, my group also like the mechanical crunch of 4e combat - which HeroWars/Quest is lacking.)

It's not about what the mechanics model. It's about the fashion in which the mechanics set up and permit the resolution of conflicts.

In my view, Planescape is in fact the poster-child for this difference: metaplot-heavy, and a vehicle for exploring someone else's conception of the moral and metaphysical order of things - not for expressing your own through play.

That's a tough proposition to demonstrate. As I've said above, I would say that Dying Earth is precisely an example of rewarding someone for conforming to genre expectations. You classify it as a non-sim game.

Would you agree or disagree with this statement?:

Any given Narrativist/storytelling game more closely resembles a High Concept Simulation/genre-emulating game than it does a classic style game based on exploration in a probabilistic game environment.

If so, doesn't that suggest that narrativist games simulate? If not, what is a genre-emulating game simulating?

I agree that narrativist games more closely resemble high concept games than "classic style" games (what I've been calling "purist-for-system") in certain respects.

But they also differ crucially. For me, the contrast between Planescape (high concept) and The Plane Above (narrativist, except for the Outer Isles stuff which is more high concept but can be mostly ignored, and probably will be in my game) marks just this difference.

I've tried again to capture it in my reply to Imago.

I've actually found purist-for-system more suitable for vanilla narrativist play than high concept, because while it has the sorts of problems with pacing and encounter design that I've mentioned upthread, unlike a high concept game it generally won't inject someone else's resolution to the thematic questions into the game. The fact that high concept games have already resolved the thematic issues, leaving the players at the table to explore that solution rather than develop their own, is for me the crucial difference.

 

[pemerton]

If memory serves me 4th edition has/had only 11 "skills"

As has been pointed out, it has 17.

Rolemaster has between dozens and hundreds of skills (depending on edition).

HeroWars/Quest has an infinite number of skills/attributes, because of its free-descriptor approach to character building.

Until you tell me what the point is of your skill system, and what principle you've used to determine how many skill there are, I have no idea whether it's good or bad.

And if your answer to that question is "I want to reduce all possible areas of human excellence and activity to a manageable number of categories" then you're already presupposing purist-for-system simulationism.

Which makes me think why waste space with a "skill challenge" system is the skills already have a system?

For the same sort of reasons that HeroWars/Quest has simple and extended contests.

It's to do with pacing, complexity of conflicts, handling complications, etc.

It about making the mechanics serve the metagame, rather than making the players of the game subordinate their metagame priorities to the mechanical system. I posted about this in detail upthread (#246).

Ultimately, they're really just a GM-aid, much like the guidelines for building combat encounters or a particular strength.

This is true, but not the whole truth. They also structure resolution in important ways (to do with pacing, injection of complication, etc). The example in Rules Compendium is a very good demonstration of this feature of skill challenges (although WotC don't actually explain what it is demonstrating, but leave it as an exercise for the reader - for example, the example involves a GM injecting a complication as a result of the skill challenge where the complication does not result from that failure via any ingame causal process, but nowhere does the rulebook actually talk about using this sort of metagame-heavy technique for resolving skill challenges).